Tigers will finally get to compete

It comes a week later than planned, but Bentonville finally gets to open its season opener Friday as the Tigers head to Conway for what becomes the first of three long trips to nonconference games.

Bentonville could be a slight disadvantage since Conway already has played a game, having defeated Fayetteville last week, but coach Jody Grant said there’s also some things that could help the Tigers’ situation as well.

“It’s hard to call what we had last week a bye week,” said Grant, who referred to Bentonville’s game against Liberty (Mo.) North being canceled. “But because we knew who we were playing, it gave us the opportunity to have an extra week of preparation.

“It gave us two weeks to prepare for Conway, which is a quality opponent. It’s why we schedule them because this game is a great preparation for the upcoming weeks. Conway is an athletic team that has a new offensive coordinator, and this will be a good game to see where we are right now.”

Senior Andrew Edwards will start at quarterback, even though he sat out of the Aug. 20 scrimmage against Springdale HarBer because he was a little banged up. Grant, however, said junior Drew Wright will also take some snaps with the varsity offense after his performance.

“Drew earned the opportunity to see some playing time after what he did in the scrimmage,” Grant said. “Both of them will play. Some don’t like the idea of playing two quarterbacks, but we’re going to do it and see how this all shakes out.

“I’m not saying both of them will see 50-50 on the snaps. We’ll give them both an opportunity to come up with the hot hand.”