By Andrew

Garner

Editor

 

Escambia County will be looking to get over the hump as the Blue Devils visit T.R. Miller this week for a mid-season show down.

Atmore hasn’t won a game this season because of injuries to key players and a tough schedule, especially in Class 5A, Region 1.

ECHS head football coach Royce Young said the biggest difference between TRM and the opponents the Blue Devils have seen in the last five weeks is numbers.

“T.R. Miller is one of the most successful programs in the state, and they have been since coach (Jamie) Riggs has been there,” Young said. “They’re as fundamentally sound as anybody you’ve seen. They don’t make mistakes. They do everything with such precision. If you mess around and make mistakes and play without discipline, they’re going to take advantage of every opportunity.”

Young added that the Tigers like to play a lot of players.

“They play multiple running backs and multiple linemen,” he said. “They’ll play three or four different kids at quarterback.”

Young said that TRM will play a lot of packages.

“It makes it extremely hard to defend multiple packages in what they do,” he said.

Right now, the focus for the Blue Devils is trying to understand the importance of discipline and how it relates to the game, Young said.

“They view discipline as punishment,” he said. “We’ve just got to get them to understand the relevance.”

Young referenced a couple times last week when he had to call time out because the offense was about to get a delay of game penalty as an example.

“We lack self discipline,” he said. “We don’t know enough little things. I think that’s our biggest obstacle right now. We don’t seem to understand the importance of doing the little things consistently and correctly.”

Young said even though the team hasn’t won a game this season, the players haven’t given up.

“Our kids aren’t jumping ship,” he said. “They’re showing up. We just have to hope for a break or two, and something good to happen for us.”

Kick off in Brewton is at 7 p.m.