The Locker Room September 4, 2008

The Pulaski County Cougars will travel up I-81 North this week for their first road game of the season against long time foe Patrick Henry, and the Patriots are looking to avenge last years loss to the Cougars and an embarrassing first game loss in the first week of their 2008 season.

Hello again Cougar fans, and welcome back to week three of the season, and another week here at cougarfootball.net. The team enjoyed an early season bye week last week, and took advantage of that time to prepare for this week’s contest with Patrick Henry. Before we take a look at that matchup though, lets take a look back at week one’s game.

If you were at the game against Northside, you may have thought to yourself “Why aren’t the Cougars pounding this team?”. I think it takes someone taking a look at the final stats before you realize just how much Pulaski County dominated this game. The Cougar defense allowed 66 total yards of offense by the Vikings. That’s passing AND rushing combined. At the same time, the Cougars racked up 17 first downs as opposed to Northsides 5, 299 yards rushing and 30 yards passing.

I’ll take that every week, thank you. It may not have been as exciting to some as a 60 to 0 blowout, but in the end it still put a mark in the win column. Now we move on to game 2, and the Patrick Henry Patriots.

Patrick Henry comes into the contest following a terrible loss at the hands of the Bassett Bengals, where they lost 46-7. This was Bassett’s second game of the season and the Patriots’ first, but for anyone who saw this game it was obvious that the Bengals were far more ready to play. That, my friends, makes this weeks game very dangerous for the Cougars.

Patrick Henry would love nothing more than to put a stop to the “Cougar Express” before it gets a chance to really build up steam. The Cougars are going to win some games this season, but a win over a Triple-A opponent would go a long way in helping with power points, which will certainly be needed at the end of the season come playoff time.

The Cougars lead this series 22 games to 12. Prior to last years 14-6 win, the Patriots had won two in a row over Pulaski, but the Cougars have prevailed in 22 out of the last 27 contests. The Patriots dominated the beginning of the series, winning the first seven meetings between the two teams.

The Patriots are running a single wing offense this season, but they are having issues. Last week they fumbled the ball seven times against the Bengals, and only managed to gain 67 yards of total offense in the contest, all of that coming on the ground. Defensively….well, they gave up 46 points, but the Bengals are an offensive powerhouse this season. If the Cougars go into this contest with the goal of winning each and every play from start to finish, they should be fine. If they go in over-confident, however, we could see results that remind us of the Virginia Tech contest against East Carolina, or the Tennessee contest against UCLA. Show up, play hard, and win.

I need to take a few minutes to put something else out there this week, as we near the official dedication of the playing surface of Kenneth J. Dobson Stadium. As most of you know, that field will be named in honor of our Hall of Fame Coach, former Head Coach Joel Hicks, during the halftime ceremonies of the Franklin County game on September 12th.

Pulaski County High School, with the help of the Pulaski County Touchdown Club, is putting together a pre-game meet and greet for former players, former assistant coaches, members of the Pulaski County School Board, members of the local government, and fans who would just like to say thank you to one of the men who helped put Pulaski County on the map in High School football. If you are a former player, a former coach who coached either with or against Coach Hicks, or a former member of the Pulaski County Touchdown Club who would like to attend this event, please contact me at cougardave23@comcast.net. We are attempting to get a headcount, and would like to know a little ahead of time what we can expect. Everyone is invited to come by and say hello to Coach Hicks, but we will have a special area set up for the former players and coaches.

In typical Coach Hicks fashion, he has only one request for this ceremony. Coach Hicks has asked that all of his former players and coaches meet with him at the flagpole right before halftime. He wants one more walk down those steps with those he has taken into battle before, and I think that’s just the perfect way to kick off the celebration on this special night. Please contact me as soon as possible so that we can get final plans finished up.

Let’s all hit the road this Friday night and make some noise as we travel for the first time to the newly constructed Patrick Henry Patriots stadium. It’s Friday night and our Cougars are 1-0; let’s get the kids jacked up and do what we can to get them to the next level!!

GO COUGARS!!! BEAT THE PATRIOTS!!!!  

50 Yard Line
by Ardent Cougar