The Gosnell Pirates get a fresh start Friday night as the second season begins in Bearcat country.
The Pirates open 3-4A conference play with league newcomer and host Brookland at 7 p.m. While Gosnell enters 0-3 and Brookland is 2-0, the only number that matters at this point is their 0-0 conference marks.
"We told them after this week, there will be four teams tied for first place in the league," Gosnell head coach Gary Moody said. "Four teams will have one win; four teams will have one loss. We need to have a good start out of the gate and do anything we can to get a win in the first conference game. We really feel like we've improved each week. We still haven't put it all together. We haven't had a complete game where we've played well the entire game, either defensively or offensively. We've done some good things each week, and we're getting better. But we're still making a lot of mistakes that we've got to correct."
The Pirates played a fairly salty nonconference slate that included three athletic teams in 5A Forrest City, county rival Osceola and 2010 3A state champion, but rebuilding Rivercrest.
Did the challenging nonconference schdedule help the Pirates prepare for the league season?
"We hope it did," Moody said. "By no means are we happy with being 0-3. This is not what we wanted to be. We didn't want to say that we're just playing some tough teams to get ready, but we have played some tough teams and we've played some teams that are very athletic and have some great skill players and also have some guys on defense that can really run to the ball. We've seen probably as good of athletes on the other team as we're probably going to face throughout the rest of the year.
"Now there's some great players in our league, but we've shown that we can tackle good running backs. We've shown that we can move the ball at times against very good defenses. We've just got to do a better job of being more consistent and not hurting ourselves with penalties or assignment breakdowns. But we hope the schedule we played helps us because we have gone against some very good teams."
Meanwhile, the Bearcats had a pretty good start to their first varsity season.
Brookland's wins came against Brinkley (42-14) and Mountain View (22-12).
Moody said the Bearcats have played well in their two games. He noted they may be new to varsity competition, but the Brookland players have played through junior high just like his players.
"They probably weren't picked at the beginning of the year to be successful and here they are 2-0," Moody said. "They have played well and have not turned the ball over very much."
He said Brookland runs basically the same defense as the one Rivercrest employs.
The Pirate offense, which has produced just 12 points in 10 quarters, will try to get on track Friday night against that Bearcat defense.
Gosnell may have to do it without starting tight end/defensive end Jerry Henry, who played in the first half against the Colts, but not the second half as he continues to deal with a banged up knee suffered in Week 1.
Henry's status likely won't be clear until Friday, according to Moody.
With or without Henry, the Pirate coach sees the line as the key for the offense.
"On offense, it's going to boil down to blocking," Moody said. "That's where our biggest weakness is right now. Across the board, we've got to do a better job of blocking if we're going to get points on the board. We don't want to rely on hoping to get a big play. We've got to be more consistent, and it begins and ends with we're going to have to do a better job of blocking.
"We work on it every day. We've emphasized it -- even more if you can --this week. We need to do a great job blocking each play, giving ourselves a chance to be successful. We've got to do a better job of holding onto the football this week. We had several turnovers last week. We can't fumble; we can't throw interceptions."
The Pirates had four first-half turnovers against the Colts and some key pre-snap penalties. Gosnell did drive deep into Rivercrest territory in the fourth quarter twice, before turning it over on downs at the RHS 5 and 18 as the Colts held on for the 20-6 win.
Moody's club is trying to workout some of those issues on offense in practice, while also prepping for the Bearcat offense.
Brookland runs a version of the spread offense and can hurt teams on the ground and through the air, Moody said.
"Their quarterback is a good player," Moody said. "He runs the ball well and they use him as a runner. We have to do a good job of tackling and carrying out our assignments. The defense played well throughout the game last week, but where they hit us with big plays is when we broke down on assignments. We bit inside on some fakes and gave them some outside running room. Brookland does a good job of faking the ball and the quarterback keeps it, very similar to what we saw last week."
He noted a big key is cutting down on defensive penalties that help the Colts keep some of their drives alive last week.
"We're not in a position where we can give the other team extra chances," Moody said.
Moody expects a competitive game.
"They want to start off 1-0 in league play too," he said. "We're anticipating that they will be fired up and ready to go. We have to do the same."
mbrasfield@blythevillecourier.com