Story by Rusty Ellis
The Livingston Academy Wildcats are 0-2 to start the Dale Flatt era, though Friday presents them with an opportunity for their first win against region foe Stone Memorial.
In the team’s 42-o loss at the hands of Cookeville on Friday, Flatt says he did see improvement even if the score may have said otherwise.
“The score probably doesn’t show it, but I saw much more life out of our kids,” Flatt said. “Even in the second half, we moved the ball better and we played better defensively. What we need, and this happens a lot with young teams, is to put together a complete game.”
Before the season, Flatt stated that one of his goals was to achieve constant improvement on a week-to-week basis. While the Wildcats have had their struggles, Flatt says he’s seeing his team get better.
“In our first game against Sparta, they scored on us and our kids let down a little,” Flatt said. “Against Cookeville, our kids kept trying…to see that improvement, that’s great. For the young kids, their first game was against Sparta. We had some kids that were out this past week, so other kids played their first game against Cookeville. When you see improvement like that and they keep on trying, that’s all you can ask for.”
Sophomore Brodey Coffee made some strides in his second high school start at quarterback, notably finding Jaden Lawrence downfield for 76 total receiving yards. Flatt says Coffee made some strides in terms of pocket awareness and getting the ball out of his hand in a more timely manner.
“He learned how to move around the pocket a little better, and out of it as well,” Flatt said. “I saw him release the ball a little quicker, and that just comes with experience…(Jaden) caught several long balls and even had a good return when they kicked to him on the return team.”
As one of the three senior captains, Lawrence is an important player for Flatt in a game like that because it helps to show younger players that they can make an impact on the game in different ways.
“Our younger kids look up to those three,” Flatt said. “I want them to see how to react in a ball game when you face adversity. I want them watching those seniors.”
This week, the Wildcats open up their region schedule against Stone Memorial. The Panthers currently sit at 1-1 after taking down East Ridge on Friday by a final score of 47-21. When the two teams met a year ago, the Wildcats earned a 28-6 win.
As far as what sticks out on film to him, Flatt says his team will have to be prepared for a team that will use short passes and trickery to get them off-balance.
“They do a lot of trick plays, and I’ve seen them do some onside kicks,” Flatt said. “They do some reverses, and they’re similar to the two teams we’ve played. They run the spread, and they don’t throw it down the field a whole lot. They like to run wide, and it feels good to finally play a game against a team that’s a similar size compared to us.”
Flatt says he hasn’t really emphasized the importance of region games over non-region contests, as he wants his kids to prepare the same way week-in and week-out.
“I really haven’t talked to them about it being a region game,” Flatt said. “We look at each game whether it’s a region game or not, and we try to prepare for that…they need to have that goal of competing and doing well within the region. That’s some things I probably should talk about and I haven’t yet.”
Building confidence in a young team is integral to Flatt’s long-term goals with the team, and a region win could do a lot for the Wildcats.
“It’d be huge,” Flatt said. “The biggest thing when we look at the last two games is that we didn’t score. That’s one goal we have; we have to get in there and score…we need to score points, and after the game’s over with, we’ll see if we won or not.”
The Wildcats and Panthers will battle it out on Friday at 7 P.M. The game will be live-streamed on Upper Cumberland Reporter 4 on Facebook.