Burk: Lions looking to be 2-0 in conf.
After getting off to its best start since 2012, the Jessieville Lions are looking to stay focused as they travel to Little Rock to take on the Baptist Prep Eagles.
Last week, the Lions (4-0, 1-0 3A-4) struggled in the first half before plugging some holes and turning a 14-13 deficit into a 26-21 victory over the visiting Perryville Mustangs (2-2, 0-1) on homecoming.
“We really didn’t change a whole lot,” Jessieville head coach T.J. Burk said. “We challenged our linemen in at halftime to come out and play a little bit better in the second half and make some holes for us offensively and then to step up defensively. The problem in the first half, we had a little lack of focus and our secondary, we busted three coverages in the first half, and I think they scored on two of them.
“So just a lack of focus there early on, but we reined it back into halftime and played a little bit better in the second half.”
Despite the strong start to the season, Burk is trying to keep his players from focusing on the overall record.
“It’s something that we’re not trying to really focus on,” he said. “We’re not looking at being 5-0 overall. That’s not something that that really matters, to be honest with you.”
Regardless of the focus, the last time the Lions were 5-0 was in
2006 when Burk quarterbacked the team to an undefeated Class
2A state title.
Burk has his team focused on winning this week against the Eagles (0-4, 0-1).
“We’re just trying to win a conference football game,” he said. “The goal is to be 2-0 in conference, and the overall record really doesn’t matter. They’re a good football team. I know their record
doesn’t show it, but when you watch them on film, there’s some things that they look really good doing. They’ve got some some big physical kids up front. We’re going to have to play well on the offensive and defensive line.”
Baptist Prep senior quarterback David Park and junior running back Hayden Brent are both players that the Lions are looking to key in on tonight.
“Their quarterback and running back, we’ve got to make sure that we tackle them,” Burk explained. “They can both hurt you in the run game, and the quarterback can hurt you with his arm, too. We’ve got to be very disciplined defensively and then offensively have to move people up front, be able to run and throw the football.”
Burk said that Park and Brent are both difficult to tackle.
“he big key is that neither one of them — [Park] or [Brent] — they don’t get tackled very easily,” he said. “So when you get one person to them, we got to make sure that we wrap up and tackle, especially [Brent]. He’s not a very big guy, but he’s extremely shifty, and he’s hard to get your hands on. So we’ve got to do a really good job of tackling when we have the opportunity to tackle in open space.”
Although the Eagles are winless, they have played some tough opponents leading up to tonight’s game.
“They’ve played some really tough competition in CAC and a much-improved Bismarck team that looks pretty good on film,” Burk said. “And Carlisle’s always good, and they had the ball inside the 15 yard line three different times against Carlisle and didn’t score, but they were right there in striking distance. That game was a lot closer than what the score indicated.
“So we’re trying to preach to our kids not to look at records. Records don’t mean anything at this point and they’re a good football team. And I would dare say that they’re probably the best winless football team in the state right now. They look pretty good on film. Our focus is on winning one game at a time. We’re not we’re not overlooking them by any means.”
Burk said that while several players suffered some new bumps and bruises last week against the Mustangs, the entire team should dress out and be ready to take the field tonight.
Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. tonight at Eagle Creek Field.