Wildcats, Panthers meet with playoff berth at stake
EL DORADO - El Dorado’s trip today to Siloam Springs will be one of the longest in school history for a regular-season football game. Unfortunately, the Wildcats cannot afford to just mail this one in.
A playoff berth could be on the line for both schools.
El Dorado brings a 3-4, 1-3 record into the game while the Panthers sit at 1-6, 1-3. Both teams have closecall victories over Sheridan. The Wildcats won 15-14 at Memorial Stadium. Siloam Springs beat the Yellowjackets 24-21 in the 6A West opener.
“It could be,” El Dorado coach Scott Reed said of this game being a playoff eliminator. “I mean, if we win, we’re in. If we don’t, we would have to beat Texarkana and it would get into a points deal probably. So, yeah, we need to win.”
The Wildcats are coming off a 41-9 loss at Benton, which was particularly ugly offensively.
“I didn’t think we played well at times. We didn’t get much done at all offensively,” said Reed. “Defensively, other than the second quarter, we played pretty well. It just seemed like the second quarter snowballed. When things aren’t going well, that will happen to you when you’ve got a team that’s not real confident.
“We’ve kind of gone back old school this week as far as how we’re practicing and getting after it with everybody.”
The Wildcats produced a season-low 208 yards of total offense last week. Reed vowed to make it much simpler this week.
“I’ll take full blame for the offense’s performance. And, I thought that was the real low
of the Benton game. Defensively, other than the second quarter, we made progress. We were better than we had been,” he said. “Offensively, we took a step the other way. A lot of it has to do with the plan. I didn’t have a good plan. I was asking people to do some things we probably aren’t ready to do.
“Anything that was new or slow developing or anything like that, was absolutely a wasted call. I’ve got to do a better job in that. The offense’s performance last Friday is on me. That won’t happen again. We’ll be back to doing what we do.”
Reed said Wednesday that junior quarterback Darius Holly could miss the rest of the season. Senior Brennan Claypoole and sophomore Wanya Frazier could both play this week.
“We’re probably going to play both of them. It depends on what we’re going to be doing,” he said. “If we’re going to be running read stuff, I’d think Wanya would do a good job with that. If we’re in two-minute offense, Claypoole is further along. This week, they’ve both been good in practice. I would imagine I’d use both of them.”
Frazier was 3-for-4 for 39 yards and a touchdown in mop-up duty last week.
Siloam Springs is coming off a season-high in points in last week’s 56-33 loss to Lake Hamilton. The Panthers were shut out the two previous weeks by Greenwood (42-0) and Benton (63-0).
Offensively, quarterback Luke Lampton shoulders the bulk of the load for Siloam Springs’ run-heavy attack.
“They’ll spread you out to do quarterback run and they have one very good receiver that probably has half of their receptions and more than half of their receiving yards. He’s a good player,” said Reed. “The quarterback is very good. He’s a downhill runner. Against Sheridan, he busted three long runs for touchdowns. He’s not a 4.5 guy but he has good savvy and good feel for when to take off. I would say the quarterback is the key to their offense, by far. He is their runner. He creates all of their big plays.”
The key for El Dorado’s defense?
“We just need to tackle well,” said Reed. “The issue Friday night against Benton, we were much better defensively, but we missed too many open field tackles.”
Designed to stop the run, Siloam Springs’ defense isn’t complicated.
“They’re big up front and I think they’re really good against the run. They’re going to be a tough challenge for us,” said Reed. “They have two good corners that will press you. They play man. One of their safeties is really good. The middle linebacker is their best player. He sits at about seven yards and you can’t get him out of the middle. They don’t care where you line up. He’s going to play middle linebacker. Everybody else may move around. He’s not. He makes a lot of tackles.
“They’re just big, thick guys up front that stay in their gap and fight. Not a lot of movement. Hardly any blitz. Just line up and go play ball.”
There’s nothing complicated about the Panthers’ style and Reed said his team will return to basics, also. With a playoff berth on the line, style points are the last thing on his mind.
“I’d love to be balanced but, right now, I just want an identity,” said Reed. “I want our kids to play hard. We’ve worked hard in practice on getting that, on getting after it and playing like we like to play.”