GAME OF THE WEEK: Buckeye High Panthers

Week 5 of high school football and the Buckeye Panthers are scheduled to host the Peabody Warhorses.

Head coach, Jonathan Landry, gives credit to Coach Hall (Peabody) and how they’ve performed on both sides of the ball. He says that “they’re 4-1 for a reason”.

“They have a really talented running back, one of the best receivers in the area, a quarterback that can throw it and when he decides to scramble and take it down, he’s dangerous with his feet as well. They present a big challenge. From a defensive prospective, it’s us having to try to cover the whole field. Defensively, they’re very aggressive. They have two defensive ends that really get after it.”

Senior lineman, Andrew Dauzat, echoes Landry’s observations.

“It’s going to be a good game. They’re big, they’re fast… bigger than us. But, we’re going to give them everything we got.”

Of course, it may be a struggle during this time in the season when you’re winless, but Landry says that these guys have embraced it all and continue to stay motivated and have great spirits.

“Our kids have had a great attitude about everything. We’ve faced some difficult circumstances. Just loss of guys for different reasons. Had some injuries and a lot of bad luck and that’s kind of part of it. Our kids have embraced the challenge every week. They’ve come every day to work hard but you know, we’re going to approach it like we do every week.”

Before beginning the second part half of the season with district games, this game against Peabody will serve as the last “tune-up” for the Panthers.

“After this, we go Marksville, Caldwell and Jena three weeks in a row who are all arguably some of the better teams in this area so we know this is our last chance to correct mistakes to get better and get ready for the second half of the season.”

Landry gives insight into what we can expect from them going into this match-up.

“We expect to play the way we expect to play every week and that’s play as hard we can play, control our effort, control our attitude… play with great effort, great energy, great enthusiasm and leave it all out on the field.”