The Blytheville Chickasaws take on their rival, the Greene County Tech Golden Eagles, Friday night at Haley Field.
The Chicks (1-4, 0-2 5A-East) are coming off a 45-9 home loss to Nettleton last Friday and have lost three in a row. Over that time, Blytheville has scored just two touchdowns and 17 points.
Greene County Tech (0-5, 0-2 5A-East) comes in winless in 2013 after a 46-26 loss to Wynne last Friday night.
The two teams enter the game as polar opposites. Blytheville's 63 points scored is the lowest in the 5A-East by 38 points. On the flip side, Tech's 220 points allowed is the most given up in the 5A-East by 67 points.
The Eagles offense is run out of the spread with senior quarterback Dylan Hartwig.
"They (Tech) run so many formations at you," said Blytheville assistant coach Ben Fisher. "They run so many that there's no way you can go over all of them. So, what we're trying to do is recognize certain formations and know what they can do out of those formations. Hartwig has a good arm and he can run too. It seems like everybody on that team can catch the ball."
Fisher said that senior linebacker Malik Walker is catching on to this strategy and passing it along to the other players.
"He's (Walker) learning to recognize what the defense is going to do and he's teaching the other kids," said Fisher. "He's been going over a lot with Chase (Turner), who's a sophomore. We haven't had to say anything to Malik. That's the kind of senior leadership we need around here and that's really been lacking."
Tech runs multiple formations on offense and they change things up just as frequently on defense.
"At first, I thought they were a 3-3 stack team," said Fisher. "But they'll line up in a 3-4 or 3-2 just to keep you guessing. They're very aggressive up front and fly to the football."
It's Homecoming Week for Blytheville and assistant coach Ben Fisher is hoping that the festivities will give the Chickasaws an extra boost Friday night.
"The kids are really pumped up this week," he said. "Homecoming probably has something to do with that. We've had a good week so far. We had a good JV game on Monday and a good practice on Tuesday. The kids have a real positive attitude right now."
The Chicks will look to expand upon the changes they made to the offense last week as sophomore quarterback Terry Northern continues to get playing time.
"Terry threw the ball great Monday night," said Fisher. "We're still going to spread teams out and go back to the Wing-T just to keep things off balance. Bailey (Cason) is still our starter. Terry and Bailey have different skill sets. When Bailey gets his feet set, he throws a nice ball. Terry has that running ability but he's still learning the offense and learning how to recognize defenses."
Fisher and the coaching staff have been handing over some of the playing time to some of the younger sophomores and juniors like Turner, Northern and D'Arik Haley.
He says this isn't about giving up on the season and looking to next year but that they are simply giving the playing time to the players who want it the most.
"The guys that are coming to practice and competing, those are the ones that are playing hard everyday. You're starting to see it affect the older kids in a good way. They're realizing that they have to do more than just show up if they want to play. It's making for some intense practices."
Blytheville is also dealing with injuries as well. DeMadre Clark is still dealing with a shoulder injury and O'Neal Thompson may be out of the starting lineup after getting banged up in Wednesday's practice. Fisher said he's also going to try to get some rest for some of the starters.
"Someone like Jonathon (Banks). He played nearly every snap last week. We've got to give him some rest. Bailey (Cason) has done well in practice at safety. He's not as fast as Jonathon but he's smart and gets himself into good position to make the play."
Kickoff for Friday night's game is 7 p.m.
afitzpatrick@blythevillecourier.com
@CN_AaronF