Today the Tahlequah High School faithful are scheduled to hold a pep rally at Norris Park starting at 6:30 p.m. as the Tigers get ready to start their first season in several years as a 5A squad.

That is just one example of much of the optimism surrounding the team’s game on Friday against Catoosa starting at 7:30 p.m. at Gable Field on the campus of Northeastern State University.

“It’s like homecoming,” THS coach Tuffy Thornton said. “There’s signs all over school. Everybody’s excited. The community’s excited, our kids have worked harder, they’re excited. The main thing I’m trying to do is keep my team level headed and just focused because all of this fanfare doesn’t mean anything if we don’t go out there and win on Friday night.”

Last season, the Indians lost to Bixby in the 5A-4 playoffs, 41-0 to finish the year 5-6.

Thornton has a personal connection to Catoosa. Catoosa coach Greg Whitely and Thornton were both coaches at Broken Arrow. While Thornton said he doesn’t know how close this year’s team is to last year’s, he knows Whitely very well.

“We go a long way back,” Thornton said. “We know that coach Whitely is an excellent teacher of screen passes. That’s got us a little bit concerned and especially how how hard we rush. We play a lot of man coverages and we do rush the quarterback with a lot of enthusiasm. That plays right into screen passes and seeing that first game is a little bit scary for us.”

On the quarterback front, there is still no word on who the Tigers will start between Colin Scarsdale and Dusten Knight. Scarsdale started both scrimmages, but Thornton hasn’t ruled out the possibility of starting Knight on Friday.

“We’re evaluating talent every day,” Thornton said. “A lot of it depends upon the defense. Dusten is a great defensive player and if we’re coming off of a long series on defense, who’s to say that Colin’s not going to start. If we run out there on offense ... I don’t know. That would be determined later. It’s a game time decision.”

Thornton also said that both quarterbacks run the offense differently and he doesn’t want to give away too much before Friday’s game.

“We’re going to keep that under our hat.” Thornton said. “It will be obvious Friday night who runs out there first. It’s not that we don’t know, it’s just that we don’t want to say right now.”

One thing is certain about the Tigers’ offense, and that is they are going to run the football and it will be Michael Crawford getting the bulk of the carries.

“Michael Crawford is as good a running back, we believe, as there is in the state,” Thornton said. “And I mean that. He can run the football. He never fumbles. He’s durable. He’s everything you’d want. He can catch, pass block and he is awfully good with the football in his hands.”