Crescent handling higher expectations
J.L. Fisher knows his kids won’t sneak up on anybody this year.
After a season of surprising most in Class A, the Crescent Tigers are looking to improve on their 11-3 record and move past a quarterfinal finish from a season ago.
To do that, they’ll have to stay humble.
“That’s what we have to tell our kids,” Fisher said following his team’s first full week of practice. “When you reach the point where everybody is gunning for you, you gotta be humbled, and you can’t take anything for granted.”
The Tigers are led by senior running back Dylan
Emery, who rushed for more than 1,400 yards last season and junior quarterback Hunter Bowers, who started as a sophomore after the Tigers’ starting quarterback’s season ended with an ACL injury.
Fisher said the early development of Bowers will pay huge dividends for the Tigers this season.
“Getting those games under his belt helped him tremendously,” Fisher said. “He’s made big strides in his throwing form and his maturity level has gotten better.”
Fisher said this season the Tigers will rely on a group of seniors that have formed the bedrock of his program, starting out with an 0-10 squad as freshmen and improving each season.
“It feels pretty good,” Fisher said. “This group was freshman four years ago, we started eight of those guys and kept plugging away. This feels like it could be a special year for us.”
Fighting for football players
The start of fall practices has been filled with good and bad for Centennial coach Don Willis.
The good is the number of kids reporting to practices is around 30, higher than last year’s 3-7 squad.
The bad is how many he has to convince to play football in the first place.
“Everybody around here wants to play basketball and not football it seems like,” Willis said. “Even the parents seem to think their kid is going to be the next Jordan or LeBron.”
Willis said he’s not upset with rise in popularity of basketball compared to football at Centennial, but in his six seasons with the Bisons it’s become increasingly difficult to fill out a roster.
“It used to be that you’d have a middle school program that fed into the high school program,” Willis said. “Now I have to go and convince kids to give football a chance.”
Willis’ greatest selling point is based on numbers. Only 15 college scholarships are offered for basketball, 85 for football.
“I try and tell them to play both and then you have an opportunity at 1 out of 100 odds instead of 1 out of 15,” he said. “No matter what though, I’m excited about the kids we do have this season.”
The Oklahoman’s fall media day Wednesday
The Oklahoman’s annual Fall Sports Media Day is set for Wednesday at Bishop McGuinness High School.
The event will be held in the lobby of the gymnasium, beginning at 3:30 p.m. and ending at 7:30. The school is located at 801 NW 50 Street in Oklahoma City. Visitors are asked to enter from the Interstate 44 service road off Western Avenue.
Each Oklahoma City-area high school participating in football, fall baseball, volleyball, cross country and fast-pitch softball is encouraged to bring athletes to meet The Oklahoman’s high school coverage team for interviews, videos and photos that will be used throughout the upcoming season.