Tigers prepare for spring game with optimism

By TRAVIS METCALF

TAHLEQUAH DAILY PRESS May 15, 2008 11:16 am

— The season is over three months away, but the work is underway for the Tahlequah High School football team. Coach Tuffy Thornton says he thinks they have a great chance of improving on their 2-8 record a year ago thanks to the team’s new district in 5A.
“Not that there’s not good teams, there’s excellent teams, excellent players, excellent players,” Thornton said. “But athletically, on a week to week basis, we will be closer to competing with schools our own size rather than competing against schools that have three or four thousand more students than we do.”
The Tigers had been competing at the 6A level for the last several seasons in the same district as teams such as 6A state champion Jenks, Owasso, Muskogee and Booker T. Washington, but dropped to 5A during the realignment process which takes place every two years.
Now the Tigers will be facing teams such as Stilwell, who moved up from 4A to 5A and recently hired a brand new coach in Kurt Myers, who was hired on Tuesday from Mooreland.
After having just over 20 players for the first day of fall practice last season, their final season in class 6A, there are about 80 players out for spring practices and Thornton credits that to optimism around the new schedule.
“Obviously they’re excited or they wouldn’t have come out,” Thornton said.
The Tigers lost seniors at key spots from last season’s team including starting quarterback Jake Thornton however Thornton said he thinks he’s found a solution, at least at the quarterback position, in Dusten Knight.
Knight, known for his strong arm on the pitcher’s mound for the Tiger baseball team, has never played quarterback however Thornton said his arm and his speed will allow him to easily adapt to the position.
“He never really played quarterback, but he’s a good athlete,” Thornton said. “He’s got that savy and that knack of making plays. He’s got the mentality, the swagger, the competitiveness and obviously he can throw. He seems a logical choice amongst us coaches.”
With starting runningback Michael Crawford coming back, Thornton said the combination of Knight and Crawford will afford his offense a little more mobility.
“Jake was accurate and had a strong arm and could sit back and throw the football where we’re going to roll Dusten out, give him a run-pass option,” Thornton said. “Because Michael is such a good runningback, we could fake to him one way and go the other.”
Thornton said the this spring practice is really about finding people to fit in the defensive secondary, of which Seth French is the only returner.
“We lost Greg Jackson, Ronald Mitchell, Chucky Bryant, so we’re looking to fill some of those holes,” Thornton said. “Still we’ve got some good kids and we’ve got a lot more athletes to choose from.”
The Tigers’ spring game will be on May 30 beginning with the freshmen game at 6 30 p.m. and the varsity at 7.
“We competed last year in 6A,” Thornton said. “Seven games, we were right there in the fourth quarter but we didn’t have the numbers to finish the game, now we’ve got the numbers so hopefully we can have guys going one way and the schools that we’re playing have the same amount of kids to choose from as we do.”

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