Strong faces tough challenge on road

By Jason Avery

News-Times Staff

For the first time since 2010, Strong is 3-0.

But for Strong coach Greg Anthony, the Bulldogs' record is 0-0.

On Friday night, Strong opens the 8-2A season facing a formidable challenge by traveling to Harmony Grove.

Game time is set for 7 p.m.

The Hornets (0-3) are playing for the first time at home, and are coming off a 14-7 loss at Glen Rose that saw the Hornets reach the red zone four times only to be turned away.

"After we got through watching film, I told them that the records at this point don't mean anything because basically everybody in the state is 0-0 right now," Anthony said. "You want to win your non-conference games of course because of the record and everything, but whenever you get to this point, you just throw all of that out, because everybody is starting on level ground. In my opinion, it's the team that's mentally going to be able to better prepare for their opponent than the other one and execute the game plan instead of looking at records."

One factor that had been missing from the Hornets' lineup in the first two weeks of the season was Jace Garcia, and having him under center along with Garrett Bearden will make preparations difficult.

"Right now, they're going with a two-quarterback system," Anthony said. "They've got Bearden, who is the better passer of the two, and the Garcia kid is a senior that's been there and has been a major player for them for three years. He just came off of a two-game suspension. They played him at quarterback quite a bit Friday against Glen Rose, and he's more of a physical, running-type quarterback. We've got to prepare for two different styles of offense depending on who is in there. They've got the (Kentrell) Hill kid at receiver, who is being recruited by a lot of people, and he can go make a play when he needs to. Their linemen are all solid. They know their techniques, they know what they're doing, they know their schemes.

In last week's win at Marianna, Desmond Newton had a terrific performance, accounting for 427 yards of total offense with four total touchdowns.

However, Harmony Grove's defense will provide a stiff challenge for the Bulldogs' offense.

"Up front, they've got two big ones in the middle that make it hard to run, so they're solid all the way around," Anthony said.

"Coach (Tony) Chambers does a good job with them. He had three coaches leave this summer, so the first couple of games have been a transition, but watching them on film, you can tell that all of the pieces are there. Whenever they get it put together, look out, because they're going to be really good."

The 8-2A has always been a difficult conference to navigate through, and the Bulldogs will find out quickly exactly where they measure up with the rest of the league thanks to their first three games, which also includes home games against Rison and Hampton following Friday's road trip.

"You get that right out of the gate, and then you look at the end, and you think the hard part is over, but you've got Parkers Chapel and Bearden your last two, so there's really not any breathing room in this conference," Anthony said. "We've already met for next year, and we go Junction City, Fordyce and Hampton. The coaches didn't want to redraw, and I'm over there trying to redraw the whole schedule next year. I didn't want all of them back-to-back, but I got outvoted 7-1.

"You've got to play them at some point in time, so if you get them early, maybe when you're healthy, you may have a chance."

Although the early part of the conference schedule may seem daunting, the Bulldogs see it as a challenge.

"That's one thing we've talked about," Anthony said. "We're 3-0 right now and we're sitting where every team in the state wants to be, but I said to the guys, ‘If you look at the schedule, in three weeks, we could be having this conversation and very easily be 3-3,’ so you've got to look at it as that it doesn't matter what you've done up to this point, the only thing that matters now is what you do from week to week.

"The teams that can mentally prepare for it and make it through those distractions are going to win because everybody is about the same at this point."

The Bulldogs' first road trip of the season was a successful one, as Strong rallied for a 36-8 win.

Leading 6-0 at intermission, the Bulldogs found themselves trailing 8-6 in the third quarter before scoring 30 unanswered points to pull away.

A big reason for the Bulldogs' first-half struggles was due to the suspension of five starters, but the Bulldogs were able to prevail.

"At halftime, nobody was feeling really good," Anthony said. "I think I had some of the players upset with me because they were wanting me to reduce their suspensions from a half to a quarter, but I just wasn't going to do that because that's what we had told them, and that's what I felt like needed to be done, so there were two sets of emotions at the half.

"You had a group that had played that first half that wasn't really happy being up only 6-0.

"But then you had those five saying, ‘It's OK coach, we've got you this second half. Don't worry about it, we're going to pull it out.’ It ended up working the way we wanted it to, fortunately.

"Any time you have to have a situation like that, it's hard on the team, but I told them that we've been through every kind of situation there could be as far as not having all the players at the game, a long road trip. We've had distractions every week, but we've fought through it and made it this far.

"Now lets do things the right way and block out things away from football that are going to interfere with us and see if we can get things going mentally in the right direction so we don't have any letdowns and see how good we can be."

An interesting facet to Newton's performance last week was his ability to make big plays with the pass, going 5-of-13 for 183 yards with two touchdowns.

"We've made some progress with our pass blocking, and I rolled him out a lot," Anthony said.

"We did a lot of sprint out or roll out or some bootleg, so we got him out away from some of the heat so he could set up and throw a little bit. It's something we've been working on."

If the Bulldogs are to knock off the Hornets, Anthony said his defense must play well.

"We've got tackle them really well," Anthony said. "We can't have missed tackles. They run really hard, so defensively, we've got to be able to tackle in open space and not let them bust any long ones. We can't have any breakdowns on defense.

"Another thing that has helped us, and I brought it up to the team, is we've got to produce some turnovers. Every game this year, we've gotten at least three turnovers, and we've had one fumble and no interceptions in three games.

"We're winning in turnover margin, and I think that's going to play a part, too. Probably the biggest thing is for us to do what we do best and not get out of our game plan. We can't get excited whether it goes our way early or it doesn't. We have to stick to it and know in the second half that we'll get things corrected and get it back the way we want it."

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