by Austin Bainbridge

The football team takes on Seymour on the road after getting defeated 67-20 by Lawrence Central in their first contest of the season last Friday.

The Red Devils go into tonight’s contest at Seymour expecting a tough match-up.

“Seymour’s a good team in my opinion. We’re going to have to play good football to win. If we go there and don’t play our best, we will lose,” said head coach Nick Cotner.

A new face on the varsity team, junior running back Jaylen Howard, picked up steam against Lawrence Central in his first varsity start and looks forward to more against Seymour.

“For my first varsity start, I thought it was really good. I had like 80 yards with a touchdown, so pretty good. I’m ready to do even better against Seymour, though,” said Howard.

One of the main components of the loss to Lawrence Central was special teams giving up 21 points, and Cotner isn’t ready to let it happen again.

“This loss is on me. Twenty-one points on kickoff alone is unacceptable, and that’s on me for not preparing us. Even with me coming into the job late, we need to be better. We’re going to be more in-depth in practice to be ready for Seymour,” said Cotner.

The team has identified some other parts of their game that need to improve as well.

“The d-line and special need to be better; along with that linebackers just couldn’t fill holes,” said sophomore linebacker General McLain.

The Red Devils have spent the week preparing for the Owls.

“We need to watch a lot of film and get better so we know exactly what we’re doing out there,” said junior Brayden Bachman.

The theme of better practices throughout the week is echoed by other players.

“Staying focused in practice is essential. If we do that, we’ll come out with the win,” said junior linebacker Cooper Spaulding.

The team has addressed their faults against Lawrence Central and are ready to take on the rest of the season, starting with Seymour.

“I think we did a lot of good stuff on offense through the air and ground game,” said Cotner. “If we could be a little more consistent, we definitely would’ve had a closer game. I think we can take a good week of practice and come out with a win.”