El Dorado set to open conference play on road
Will rusted or rested be the result of El Dorado’s open date last week? The Wildcats (1-2), who haven’t played since a 27-10 loss to Cabot on Sept. 7, travel to Pearcy tonight to open up conference play against unbeaten Lake Hamilton.
The Wolves are 3-0 and averaging 42 points per game. They’re coming off a 42-7 win over Hot Springs last week.
“They’re good. They’re improved. They’re scoring a lot of points,” said El Dorado coach Scott Reed.
“They have seven or eight returners on defense. I think the strength of their team is their defense. They’re a Wing-T team, which is a lot of block down, kick-out. You have to be disciplined, stay on the line of scrimmage, handle your gap and don’t get trapped, that kind of stuff.”
The Wildcats have had plenty of time to prepare for the Wolves’ run-oriented offense. Cabot ran the ball on 58 of its 59 plays out of the Dead-T formation.
El Dorado spent a portion of its open date shoring up the deficiencies revealed against the Panthers.
Will the time off be good or bad for the Wildcats?
“Good, I hope, I guess we’ll find out Friday night,” he answered. “We needed it. We were kind of banged up. We’d played three good teams.
“I thought we needed some time to kind of heal up a little bit and refocus. I think our guys have done that. This week has been real good. Last week was good.
“We shortened it a little bit, spent some time in the weight room and corrected some things we had to get better at, just fundamentals. It’s nice to have that open date sometime in the football season.”
Lake Hamilton beat Hot Springs Lakeside (31-27) and Malvern (56-10) before its win over Hot Springs last week.
The Wolves’ three opponents have a combined record of 1-8 this season and Lakeside’s lone win was over Malvern (35-7) last week.
Hot Springs’ lone seven points of the year came against Lake Hamilton.
But, Lake Hamilton’s offensive style could be a problem for the Wildcats, who couldn’t get Cabot off the field in their last game.
“I think playing Cabot should help us, getting ready for them. I think we’re improved from what we were the first few games,” said Reed.
The Wolves average 233.6 pounds on the offensive line from tackle-to-tackle, including left tackle Canyon Webb (6-3, 300).
Sophomore Layne Warrick emerged as Lake Hamilton’s quarterback.
Defensively, Lake Hamilton’s focus is on stopping the run.
“They’re a lot like Conway. They’re an even front, generally
six men in the box. They play a lot of two-high safeties, a lot of zone and match-man coverage,” said Reed.
“They’ll play three-over-two if you have two wide receivers to one side. They remove a backer out of the box but he’s mainly a run player, a flat player. It’s not like he’s going to go carry you and chase you in man. The corners and the safeties do the downfield coverage.
“They’ll bring the weak side safety down in the box a lot to help with the run game. They did that against us last year to try and get to an eight-man front to keep us from running the ball. There are a lot of man principles behind it.”
The Wolves’ base set is a 4-2-5 and is keyed by safety Kanaan Williams (6-3, 185) end Ray Hamp (6-3, 205) and noseman Eli Vaughn (5-11, 240).
“The six guys inside pretty much try to handle what goes on tackle-to-tackle with them,” said Reed, who didn’t get a lot from watching film.
“Malvern got in empty, five-wide all night so you couldn’t tell much about that film. It didn’t really help us a lot. Hot Springs tried to do both.
“Everyone I’ve seen has had a hard time running the ball between the tackles against them. They’re physical inside.
“They hold their ground. They fight hard and they’ll come hit you. If you cannot run the ball inside … we need to be able to run it. I would hope we can run it better inside than other people have.”
Another priority will be getting dynamic players such as Alex Hicks, Shun Levingston and Keonte Larry into open-field situations.
“They run to the ball well but I think that’s a big deal, is us getting into space on them,” said Reed. “I think if we do, we’re going to get some big plays.”
In Lake Hamilton, El Dorado will face an opponent similar to Cabot.
But, the Wolves present more of a passing threat on offense. The Wildcats never could stop the Panthers from running the ball. They have to improve in that area.
“We don’t need them to be able to run the ball like Cabot did. That’s number one. We can’t let them keep the ball, 12, 14 plays like Cabot did all night,” Reed said.
“I mean, we didn’t force a punt. We can’t live like that. That’s number one. I think we’re going to play much better defensively. I do.
“And then, we need to create more turnovers. We need to win the turnover battle. We need to be good with the ball. We need to be able to get all our guys in space with the ball. We need to have some balanced production out of all our guys.”
Health-wise, the week off benefited the Wildcats, especially offensively. On the defensive side, a pair of defensive linemen, Braden Cook and Jamal Boone, are listed as doubtful.
Reed said the open date came at the perfect time, right before league play.
“This is a huge game for us, first conference game. I think our league is wide open,” he said. “If you look around, people think Benton is really good. I haven’t seen Greenwood.
“I just know it was impressive that Benton beat Cabot. But, our conference schedule is front-end loaded with Lake Hamilton and Greenwood back-to-back.
“Those two are generally toward the top. It’s really important that we get off to a good start the first week of conference play.
“This is a big game for us. I think we’re going to play much better than we did against Cabot. I like the way our guys have practiced and I like the way they’ve bounced back.”