Editor’s note: Tonight’s game will be streamed live at https://youtu.be/7c7T2Jd4kgQ
File photo by Kevin Nagle
Considering that the defending 7A champion Bryant Hornets, ranked number one in the state and number 32 in the country, have not only defeated but “mercy-ruled” three teams that were ranked among the top eight in their respective classifications (7A and 6A) going into the season, one could wonder whether the start of the 7A-Central Conference schedule might bring, if not a loss, maybe a game in which the Hornets’ starters would play beyond the start of the third quarter.
Among the teams of the 7A-Central, this week’s opponent, Fort Smith Northside, would appear to be one of the likeliest candidates to get that done and, perhaps, threaten the Hornets’ unbeaten season so far.
For one thing, Northside’s Grizzlies will be at home and many of these players saw action in the 7A State semifinals in Bryant last fall, a step away from reaching the championship game themselves.
“Everybody’s 0-0 and that’s not just coach-talk,” said Hornets head coach Buck James. “It’s real stuff. They’re going to get up to play us. I think everybody gets up to play us. If they could win this game, this’d put them in the driver’s seat.
“We have to take it that they’re going to get after us,” he asserted. “And we’ve got to impose our will. And we’ve got to do it from the first play all the way to the last play of the game.
“We’ve got to play hard,” the coach continued. “If we’re playing hard and playing well, then it’s good. If we’re playing hard and we’re not playing very good, that still gives us a chance to keep chopping at that tree.
“We tell our kids, the good teams you have to play harder longer. You don’t go out there and play less that you do against a great team than you do a team that’s not very good. But you have to do it longer. This may be a game where our kids have to fight and scratch and claw for a full four quarters.”
Don’t get James wrong. He’s thrilled with the start of the season, wins over Benton (42-14), Bentonville West (38-0) and Fayetteville (42-13).
“We hope we’ve played good teams,” he said. “None of them have good records right now but I think all of that’s going to work itself out. If you had told me at the beginning of the year that we would’ve played like we’ve played and done what we’ve done the first three weeks, I would’ve taken that and ran with it.
“Our kids have played hard,” he added. “They’ve played well. There’s things that we need to fix, of course. But I don’t think I could ask them to play any harder or give a better effort than what they’ve given us the last three weeks.
“It’s really sort of been magical,” the coach stated. “Hopefully, that’s a trend that we can stick with. Sometimes youth is wasted on the young but these kids, for three weeks, have really played good football. Way better than I ever anticipated. This is sort of what I dreamed of when I first came here, to have this kind of production. To do it as well as we’ve done it feels good.”
The key to maintaining that effort, that production, the coach said, is within the team itself.
“We’ve got a lot of people. I think we go three deep on our defensive line. We go at least two and a half deep at our receivers. We go two or three deep in our running backs. We go a couple deep in our secondary. We’ve got competition at every spot and I think that helps your football team.”
Northside may be as athletic as anybody the Hornets have played so far.
“(Offensive coordinator) Coach (Kirk) Bock has said many times that this bunch gives us as many problems as anybody on tape can give us,” James said. “They can run. They’ve got good size. They’re physical and they’re long. From an offensive standpoint, they give us a lot of things that we feel like could give us some problems. Now, a lot of that comes up to how well our players respond to it. But, on the hoof, they’ve got some guys that are very athletic.
“People that scored on them basically scored on them because of big plays,” he mentioned. “But nobody just drives the ball on them.”
The Grizzlies are led by a new quarterback, junior Dreyden Norwood. He’s the kind of run/pass threat that the Hornets dealt with several times last season but hasn’t really gone up against this year so far.
“I think he’s every bit as athletic,” said James, comparing him to the graduated Deuce Wise. “His brother is a cornerback and safety at Oklahoma (Tre Norwood). He was a great high school player there.
“He’s just kind of seasoned into it as far as his throwing but I think he’s accurate. He has a strong arm. He just hasn’t played the position a lot, it looks like. But he can run. He’s the kind of guy you can’t hardly catch in a phone booth. He makes you cover the whole field and teams that make you cover 50 yards wide and 50 yards deep are teams that are tough to beat.”
Northside returns six starters on offense and seven on defense. They’ve routed two weaker opponents, Rogers Heritage, 36-7, and Van Buren, 44-6, but lost to second-ranked Greenwood, 31-10. So, how does a coaching staff prepare with those games as scouting material?
“You really look at the things that worked,” James said. “Then really concentrate on things that didn’t work. The things that didn’t work, they’re probably not going to try to do against you. And the things that worked for them, they’re definitely going to try to keep doing it. I think it narrows down the bad plays, for sure, and then you have to concentrate on how many good plays they have and how well they did it, then how were they defended. Sometimes it’s good to look at the teams that weren’t very good because you really get more out of that than you do when a real good team played them.”
Northside played its three non-conference games then took their off week to give them two to prepare of conference and the Hornets.
“They’ve got a lot of weapons and they haven’t shown everything they do,” James related. “That’s the scary part. We’ve got to do some things against what they might do just by guessing what they’re going to do with it because, really, they didn’t have to do a lot in two of their games then, the other game, they didn’t get a chance to do the things that worked a lot. That’s where we’ve got to think outside the box with them, look back at things they’ve done in years past, things they’ve had success with on us and really do our homework.”
