El Dorado ninth grade team takes on Texarkana.
EL DORADO - For the first time in recent memory, El Dorado won’t be chasing the 6A-South championship this season. The Wildcats travel to Lake Hamilton tonight to take their first step toward the 6A-West crown.
Kickoff is 7 p.m.
Although there are three new league teams on the schedule in El Dorado’s realigned conference, the Wolves are an old foe. But, with a new coach and a brand new look.
Jeremy Reed has brought a run-oriented double-slot offense to Lake Hamilton, which is off to a 1-2 start this season.
“They’re another bone team,” said El Dorado coach Scott Reed. He said the Wolves’ offense is the same as what Magnolia ran against the Wildcats last week.
“They’re totally different than they’ve been in the past defensively. They’re an odd front with lots of blitz and pressure - lots of man coverage, lots of movement. It’s not at all like they’ve played in the past.”
Lake Hamilton won its opener against Hot Springs 28-17 but fell to Malvern (35-33) and to Bryant (24-21) last week.
“I’ve watched them on film. They’ve gotten better. There was an article that said they could very
easily be 3-0 and they could be. Their scores have been really close,” said Reed.
For the third consecutive week, El Dorado will face an option quarterback. Lake Hamilton’s Dafavioun Haywood will be one of the fastest players on the field. Senior Johnathan Buss is a hard-nosed runner at fullback.
“Their quarterback is a very good player,” said Reed. “They’ve got some good athletes and the quarterback is fast. He can run. He’s elusive. He’s a good player. The fullback is a good player, too. He will wear you out if you let him get going.”
According to Reed, the Wolves have only thrown the ball 19 times on the season.
Last week, El Dorado won at Magnolia 31-10 but not before the Panthers dominated the first quarter behind the running of quarterback Parker Ribble. Reed hopes his defense has solved that equation before facing the same offense for the second week in a row.
“It’s a big challenge for us. Those type of offenses, in the past, have given us a hard time. It’s hard to get ready for it in a week,” he said.
“The issue we had last week was we had a lot of guys who had keys and then they get to watching the ball instead of watching their key and doing what their key tells them to do.
“And then all of a sudden you’re out-leveraged and they’re running. You have to have great eye discipline. If you’re reading a back or an offensive lineman and he does something, then you’re supposed to react and do something. Last Friday, especially in the first half, we didn’t do that and we got a little lost.”
Defensively, the Wolves play an odd front.
“It’s more like a 3-4 and then they move stuff around. Sometimes it’ll be an even front. They’ve brought more corner fire than I’ve seen in a whole year, just in the first couple of games. They’re very active and do a lot of movement, try to confuse you, give you a bad play, create turnovers,” said Reed, whose team has already faced odd-front defenses in Nashville, Cabot and Magnolia.
“None of those groups moved and brought blitz stuff like this one does,” he said.
Whose responsibility is it to read the blitz and make checks at the line of scrimmage - Reed or junior quarterback Darius Holly?
“Sometimes it’ll be me, most of the times. And then, there are times it’ll be him who will have to adjust prior to the snap,” said Reed.
“We started doing some of that this past week. We’ll have more built-in things where if they bring it, you can throw it hitch screen … you know, get the ball out of your hand quick.
“I think we have some things if we execute well, it will be very good to us. It matters how we handle all the movement and pressure up front.”
With Lake Hamilton’s ground attack, the Wildcats hope to get ahead early and force the Wolves to alter their game plan. Handling the blitzes will be critical for El Dorado’s offense.
“We don’t want to take lost-yardage plays. We don’t. And, we don’t want to turn the ball over. The game that we turned the ball over, even though we got more than we gave up, we still came up short. The other two games, we’ve had a major advantage in the turnover department. They’re going to try to create some turnovers. Our defense has done a great job thus far of getting the ball,” said Reed.
“The areas I’d like to get better at, I’d like, defensively, that they don’t control the ball and have the long drives. I’d like to see us not have more than one or two drives where they keep the ball more than six plays.
“That would be huge. We don’t need them to limit our number of possessions. Offensively, lost-yardage plays and the ability to dictate - do what we want to do when we want to do it, whether it’s run or pass.”