Making progress

Sheridan has already matched its total victories from a year ago, and Coach Louis Campbell believes the Yellowjackets’ experience has been a big reason for that.

The Class 6A Yellowjackets have 16 seniors, 10 of whom started as sophomores.

“They’ve paid their dues,” Campbell said.

Sheridan (2-1) lost its opener at Little Rock McClellan 37-14 but bounced back to beat Class 4A Arkadelphia 28-20 on Sept. 11 at home and defeated Class 5A White Hall 27-9 last Friday. The Yellowjackets were 2-8 in 2014, earning victories against McClellan and Little Rock Hall.

Senior running back Brockton Brown has been the Yellowjackets’ workhorse. Brown, 6-0, 190, rushed for 242 yards and 2 touchdowns at White Hall. He scored on runs of 43 and 23 yards that led to a 20-2 lead before halftime.

Brown has rushed for 578 yards and 6 touchdowns on 70 carries. He is averaging 9.3 yards per carry and 192.7 yards per game.

“When you can run the ball, you have a chance to be successful,” Campbell said. “You can use the clock and shorten the game. That’s what we want to do.”

Sheridan’s football program hasn’t won at least six games since the 2011 season, Campbell’s second year at the school. So while the Yellowjackets have shown progress, there is still work to be done.

“When you haven’t won, the hardest thing to do is to teach them how to win,” Campbell said. “It’s a work in progress. Our kids have done a good job up to this point, they’ve worked hard, but getting to the point to expect to win and not expect to lose takes time.”

Sheridan travels to Lake Hamilton (0-3) tonight for its 6A-South Conference opener. The Yellowjackets haven’t won at Wolf Stadium since 1990 and have lost to the Wolves by an average of 35 points each of the past four seasons.

Campbell believes this may be the best chance in his tenure at Sheridan for the Yellowjackets to win at Lake Hamilton.

“We have to play well,” Campbell said. “We can’t go over there and turn the ball over and give them big plays. If we do the things we’ve done the last two weeks, we’ve got a chance to win.”