Rochelle —
By HARVEY SIMPSON
Dispatch Sports Editor
ROCHELLE — Effort and execution have been greatly stressed in this week’s practice sessions as Wilcox High tries to maintain the lofty perches it holds in the early Class A grid polls.
“We have to get 11 kids both offensively and defensively doing their jobs on every play, which is something we didn’t get this past Friday night (in a season-opening 34-13 win over Miller County),” Patriot head coach Mark Ledford said.
“While there were a lot of normal early-season things we need to correct from our opener, I do want our kids to know I was extremely proud of the fact we had one penalty against Miller.
“It would be great to see a repeat of that when we go to Cochran (tomorrow night) to meet Bleckley County (which rallied from an early 13-0 deficit to post a 27-19 win over Lamar County in its 2010 debut).”
In the Royals, Wilcox will be meeting a team that offensively lines up in the spread and despite taking every snap from shotgun formation still runs the football about 60 percent of the time.
“One of their main concerns for us about them,” said Ledford, “is that they’ve got two quarterbacks who not olly are big threats running the football but also are very accurate passers.
“They’ve also got 2-3 other good running backs and a receiving corps featuring some guys, particularly No. 8, who can go get the football when they elect to put it in the air. Stopping them isn’t going to be an easy task.”
When it comes to defense, Ledford said he’s anticipating that Bleckley will go with a four-man front against his team’s spread attack.
“They’re very aggressive on that side of he ball as they like to blitz a little. They’ve also got a secondary that looks to be very athletic as like us they play a good number of their skill players both ways. They’re just real sound overall on that side of the ball.”
Asked what impressed him most of all about the Royals, Ledford said it’s their nucleus of athletic kids who are playmakers and are very well coached.
“With them being as good as they are on defense, it’s going to be important that we control the football and then convert when any scoring oppportunity comes along.
“Again, with it still being this early in the season special teams play could well prove to be a key to the final outcome. In their regular season and scrimmage game wins, Bleckley blocked a punt that turned the momentum their way. We need to try and guard against that happening again.”
The Patriots, who last met Bleckley in football in 1995 when they won 20-19 to make the series edge 10-3 in the Royals’ favor since 1956, have no serious injury concerns going into the 14th meeting between the schools.
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