Published: September 09, 2009 11:37 am      

Familiar face coming back to area

A familiar face to football around this area, but new to the eight-man ranks, will be back in Garvin County Friday night when his Central Bronchos take on the Paoli Pugs. The familiar face is former Pauls Valley head coach Glennis Ring.

Ring took the Central job this year and has started turning around a program that only won two games a year ago.

In their opener, Central scored 58 points in a win over Mt. View-Gotebo, half of what they scored all of last season.

Ring, who has been an 11-man coach at different schools in Oklahoma, has turned to the eight-man ranks and brought his run-and-gun offense with him, only it’s an eight-man version.

“They are going to run a no-huddle offense primarily out of the shotgun,” Paoli head coach Justin Hannah said.

“We don’t get to face a lot of no huddle offenses in eight-man. We have to make sure we are aligned properly and know our responsibilities up on the line of scrimmage.”

Quarterback Kyler Newton runs the Broncho offense. The sophomore had 295 total yards last week against Mt. View and had five touchdowns.

“Newton plays well for a sophomore,” Hannah said. “He does a good job running the offense. He’s accurate throwing the football and they use him a lot in the running game.

“They also have Antonio King in the back field. He gives people problems with his speed. They try to run him on the outside but will put him in the slot and throw the ball to him also.”

Defensively the Bronchos will line up in a 3-2 look that does a lot of slanting up front and have improved a bunch over the last three weeks.

“They are well coached,” Hannah said. “Their tackling has improved since the scrimmage and they’ve gotten better each week. The coaches do a good job of having their kids get lined up right and then do things right fundamentally.”

The Pugs went to overtime last week at OCA, but turnovers and penalties could have prevented the two-overtime game.

They can’t make those same mistakes this week as they begin district play.

“We have to eliminate the turnovers and penalties that we had Friday night,” Hannah said. “Central has shown on film that they will take advantage of turnovers.

“The game was tied at half time the other night and Mt. View came out to start the second half and turned the ball over. Central capitalized on that turnover and a couple of more with scores. They do a good job of tackling a weakness.”

With the start of district, a new season begins. Each district game will go toward a team making or failing to make the playoffs.

“Our kids are excited about our home opener,” Hannah said. “The intensity goes up even more because it’s a district game and the district opener. This is a win we need to get as far as getting to our goal of making the playoffs.”

Kick-off at Pug Field is at 7:30 p.m.