Lawton High football coach Ryan Breeze met with The Lawton Constitution’s Kevin Green ahead of the Wolverines’ Friday night road matchup with No. 2 Bixby (9-1) in the first round of the Class 6A-II playoffs.
Breeze discussed the Putnam City win, being the best team in Lawton and his first year as a head coach.
Week 10 debrief
Last Thursday’s game against Putnam City was about as ho-hum as one can get during Week 10, but it was much-needed for LHS.
After suffering a 27-point loss to No. 5 Del City, the Wolverines bounced back with a dominant 56-7 win over the district punching bag Pirates (0-10).
Everyone got in on the action, and several young players got to show fans in the second half a glimpse of the Wolverines’ future.
Freshman Devin Simpson and sophomore Jaketrian Nolan both managed a rushing touchdown in the win, giving star running back Miles Davis some well-deserved rest. Sophomore Drelin Simpson and senior Colin Hooper also saw some time in the backfield.
“We put some freshmen in, and the last touchdown was a freshman running back,” Breeze said. “We also had a freshman right guard, right tackle and tight end in the game.”
The Wolverines finished with 192 yards rushing, with Davis leading the way at 112 yards and two touchdowns on 13 carries, but the real success came in the passing game.
Eric Wiley completed 7 of his 16 passes in only one half of action, finishing with 154 yards and three touchdowns.
He threw scoring strikes to Chateau Reed, Caelab Fuller and Demarcus Andrews on throws of 47, 25 and 27 yards, respectively. Reed led the trio with five catches for 127 yards.
Top of Lawton
For the first time since 1974, LHS is the only team from Lawton to make the playoffs.
That is quite an accomplishment, especially considering the success all three programs have enjoyed in their history. Last season, all three schools qualified for the postseason for the first time since 2011.
However, when asked how much pride it brings him, Breeze said he isn’t too concerned with how MacArthur and Eisenhower perform after the Wolverines play them.
“We’re happy about us,” Breeze said. “We want to beat them when they’re on our schedule, but our season isn’t made by whether or not we beat Ike and Mac. We want to beat them, and we want to be city champs, but we’re not worried about competing with them. Sometimes people spend too much time worrying about what other people are doing and not enough time working on themselves.
“It is a cool feeling, but not as cool as wearing the ‘City Champs’ shirt around.”
First year in review
Breeze’s first year at the helm of one of the winningest programs in Oklahoma history has been a roller coaster ride.
He started his head coaching career with a surprising 45-35 loss to Altus, but the Wolverines bounced back the next week against Mac and became the first team in state history to reach 800 wins, beating Clinton to the mark by one week.
Unfortunately, Breeze has yet to log a victory against a ranked opponent. LHS went 0-4 against such competition this season, losing by an average of nearly 13 points per game.
If the Wolverines were to lose to Bixby and end the year with a 6-5 record, it would be the program’s worst finish since finishing 6-4 in 2012 and missing the playoffs.
“Obviously any time you don’t win, you’re not happy,” Breeze said. “It was a good group to coach, and we had a lot of fun coaching. We’re not ever going to be satisfied unless we bring home the Gold Ball. The ball didn’t bounce our way multiple times and that affected our playoff seeding, but we’re in the playoffs. We’re one of the final eight teams, and there’s no bad teams left. I don’t think we’re the worst team still left, but if we can beat Bixby, we’ve set ourselves up for a better path to the final.”
Even if the season ends on Friday night, Breeze said the silver lining is the number of players coming back. The Wolverines had 10 seniors this season, and only eight of them saw significant playing time.
“You have Miles Davis and Hector Becerra leading this senior class, but we’re not losing a ton of bodies,” Breeze said. “It’s going to be hard to replace 3 (Davis) and 77 (Becerra) and the leadership of Xavier Johnson and the caliber of kid in Colin Hooper, but we have a lot coming back, and we think we’re going to be better next year.”