Lawton High football coach Ryan Breeze spoke with The Constitution’s Kevin Green on Tuesday ahead of the Wolverines’ matchup against Altus at 7 p.m. on Thursday at Cameron Stadium.
Breeze talked about the stakes involved in the season opener, the ups and downs from last week’s scrimmage, who won the quarterback battle, losing a starter to injury and the first Black Watch recipients of the year.
Scene Setter: The drive for 800
For the second-straight year, LHS is starting its season on a Thursday night, hosting Altus.
Before last season’s Thursday opener, a 33-32 loss to Class 5A champion Carl Albert, LHS hadn’t played a Thursday night season-opening game since 1990, which resulted in a 36-22 loss to the Bulldogs. Twenty-eight years later, the Wolverines have a chance to avenge that loss.
It will be the teams’ first meeting since 2013, which LHS won, 52-0. It will also be the Wolverines’ first game without Breeze’s father, Randy, as head coach since 2005.
A win would give LHS its 800th win in program history — the most of any Oklahoma schools. The Wolverines currently rank 19th in the nation with 799 wins, according to the NFHS record book.
Valdosta (Ga.) leads the nation with 917 wins.
“I knew we were up there, but I didn’t know it was 799,” Breeze said. “I’m going to tell the kids because I think it’s really cool and something we should drive on.”
Ardmore challenges LHS
Ardmore has built a reputation as a top team in Class 5A in recent years, and LHS learned just how formidable the Tigers can be during a scrimmage last Thursday.
The teams’ starters and second-stringers alternated every 10 plays for a few drives before competing in a one-quarter game simulation. After time expired, the scoreboard read 7-7.
Breeze said Ardmore presented the challenge LHS was looking for considering the Tigers have the same offensive scheme as Altus.
“It was a really good scrimmage for us because we got a trial run against the flexbone before we play Altus,” Breeze said. “I feel like that should help us a ton. We did alright, but the look we replicated in practice didn’t match the speed at which they did it. The offensive line coming off was a lot better than what we’ve been giving them. We played assignment football, we just have to match the speed.”
Miles Davis, the Wolverines’ star running back, was his usual self, getting the most out of his limited carries, rushing for more than 80 yards on only five touches. However, LHS’s ability to run the ball was never in question.
The true goal of the scrimmage rested elsewhere, and the coaching staff was successful in fulfilling that objective.
“We could have force-fed him, but that’s not what we were trying to get out of the scrimmage,” Breeze said. “We were trying to evaluate the quarterbacks and the receivers, so we threw it quite a bit.”
QB1 goes to...
Kyler Jenerseck and Eric Wiley Jr. have been locked in a battle for the starting quarterback position for most of the preseason, and it was finally settled last week in Ardmore.
Wiley Jr. will start the season opener against Altus, Breeze announced on Tuesday.
“We feel like Eric won the battle, so he’s going to get the nod,” Breeze said. “We wanted to do it the week before, but Kyler played as well as I’ve ever seen him play against Edmond North. It wasn’t clear-cut, but Eric played a little bit better last week, so we’re going with Eric.”
When asked what specifically won Wiley Jr. the job, Breeze said a combination of factors led to the decision, most notably his pocket awareness.
“He does have a little bit better arm, and he did a good job of taking what was there,” Breeze said. “His best throw of the night, he stepped up in the pocket with the rush coming at him and drove the ball hard over the middle. He had good pocket presence and didn’t force the issue. With his arm, he can stay on the deep stuff longer because he has the ability to still fit it in there. He can really put some mustard on it and get it out there."
Breeze also credited Wiley Jr.’s intelligence, claiming the junior learns from his mistakes and makes timely adjustments to his game.
“You can tell him something one time and consider it done,” Breeze said. “He’s not going to make the same mistake twice, he’s coachable and he can self-diagnose a throw. A lot of the time, he knows why he missed a throw.”
Oh, and he also has a cannon for an arm.
“He’s broken three fingers during fall camp,” Breeze said. “He throws it so hard, and now we have three freshmen receivers out with broken fingers.”
Austin out for season
Although there were plenty of positives to take from the Ardmore scrimmage, the Wolverines didn’t return home unscathed.
During the quarter portion of the scrimmage, junior receiver Eddie Austin suffered a severe leg injury, breaking his tibia and fibula in his right leg after making a catch for a first down. Austin underwent a successful surgery on Friday and is expected to be out of action for 11-12 weeks.
Austin caught 12 passes for 102 yards and two touchdowns last season and was expected to play major roles on both sides of the ball in 2018.
Despite the preliminary recovery timetable being an unfavorable one for LHS, Breeze is keeping an optimistic mindset.
“We’re holding up hope he can come back for the playoffs,” Breeze said. “We get a pass out to him, and he gets about 10 yards, so we’re calling the next play. Then I heard in the headset that Eddie was down. I couldn’t see because we were lining up, so I was asking if he’s OK and if he’s getting up. By the time I saw it, the crowd saw it because he lifted his leg up, and it was L-shaped.”
The scrimmage was cut short after the unfortunate injury, but the process of helping Austin receive medical attention was made much easier thanks to Ardmore.
“Ardmore was first-class in everything,” Breeze said. “They were phenomenal in the way they handled that. They even brought his family home in a school car. Coach Josh Newby is as good as they come — he’s a great man. They fed the team, and they had players go to the hospital on Thursday night and pray with Eddie. They’re a good group of guys.”
Black Watch
The Black Watch is an elite regiment in the Scottish army, but it takes on a different meaning at LHS.
The Black Watch is a Wolverine tradition that dates back to 1987, the year of LHS’s last football state championship. The coaching staff normally picks four or five players to don the honor, but this year, more than double that received the distinction.
Those players include Xavier Johnson, Jeremiah Magee, Wiley Jr., Jenderseck, Micah Avendano, Demarcus Andrews, Colin Hopper, Austin, Hector Becerra, Davis and Romeo Blanton.
Those 11 will wear black Wolverine decals on their helmets, similar to the yellow ones used by the University of Michigan football team.
“The guys we pick all have success in the classroom, they all have success in the community and they’re big-time people,” Breeze said.
Great American Rivalry Series
As reported in the Aug. 22 edition of The Lawton Constitution last week, the Great American Rivalry Series (GARS) selected the LHS-Ike game on Sept. 14 to showcase as one of the nation’s top rivalries.
Although GARS will be providing coverage of the contest in a variety of ways, the game will not be available via online stream as originally reported. Instead, the media outlet’s online coverage will include only photographs, video clips and a short game recap.
Fans unable to make it to Cameron Stadium for the big game can still catch Oklahoma Sports Network’s live broadcast at oksportsnet.com .