Football season review

As we reach the brink of November, the beloved football team hangs up their cleats and picks up the barbells as the 2016 football season comes to an end. Even though playoffs were not in our cards this year, Friday nights were something to look forward to and the excitement of home games will be sincerely missed.

Much was accomplished this season whether it was on the scoreboard or off the field and the team proves to get better every year. Football coach Chris Cagle is tremendously proud of his players and has seen improvement in everything they do.

“This senior class had the most wins in the past ten years,” Cagle said. “The amount of wins we had this season is equal to the wins combined of the past six seasons.”

Whether the team won every game is not what’s important, but accomplishing moral victories every Friday night is.

“We compete every night and we always have a chance to win. Defensively we have gotten a lot better, and our allowed points per game dropped tremendously,” Cagle said. “Offensively our points per game remained the same but our offensive production has gotten better as well.”

One cannot look back on the 2016 season without remembering some of the greatest wins or the best plays.

“One of things I remember most was overcoming adversity and beating Athens and going to Buckhorn and defeating them even though we were picked to lose,” Cagle said.

Some other fond memories were the great plays made by offensive players Parker Swords, Hunter Gibson, or Devin Kimbrough. The seniors always contributed and became leaders who encouraged the rest of the team to crush those teams like Athens, Huntsville, Grissom and Buckhorn. Like they always do, the team plans to improve for next season.

“Starting next week, the boys will go back to the weight room. Everyone loves the competitions we have during the offseason in and out of the weight room,” Cagle said.“Preparation is key, we plan to prepare until our season arrives.”

One of the crucial things in this demanding sport is being prepared to practice often and to practice hard. The boys never come short of that and coach Cagle makes sure of it.

“One thing we have is a really great offseason work ethic. We practice over and over in order to prepare for our games,” Cagle said. “Games give you experience but without practice you will never be prepared to play those games.”