The Farmers started the season in a rather chaotic fashion on Friday night against the Grand Prairie Gophers. Lewisville went into the game as the heavy favorite but stumbled from the gate. While the defense held the Gophers on their opening possession, the Farmer offense took over and on the second play from scrimmage, QB Jordon Dotson mishandled the snap and the Gophers recovered. From this point, the Farmer defense gave up nearly half the field in penalties, once even on a 4th and 6 in which the Gophers were punting which then lead to a 4th and 1 of which they converted.

However, the second quarter was the Farmers as they scored 17 unanswered points to take a 17-6 lead into halftime curiosity of a FB Ben Monjaras 5 yard TD run, a 25 yard TD pass from Dotson to REC Jamirie Howard and a 43 yard Atterberry field goal. From here, it looked as if the Farmers would come out and roll over the usually prone to lay down Grand Prairie Gophers, that however was not to be the case.

The Gophers rallied back to take a one point lead off of touchdown receptions by REC Malcolm Berry from backup QB Joe Mason. With less than two minutes to go and the Gophers already into Farmer territory, the defense finally came up with a few big plays to push Grand Prairie back and forced them to punt. A big return by Terrick Edwards setup the Farmers just inside Gopher territory with around 50 seconds to go and a few quick strikes to Dotson got the Farmers just barely inside field goal range. On a 4th and 8 from about the Gopher 30 yard line, Will Atterberry nailed a 47 yard field goal which could have been good from possibly 55+ yards to take the 20-18 win.

Final Thoughts:

This game should be great footage for the players and coaches to look over and determine what needs to be worked out. I’ll say this, the defensive backfield seemed to be absent the second half, they just looked tired but the team in general looked it a bit. The defensive line and linebackers played fairly solid and didn’t allow much of a run threat which was good.

The offense was a little haywire. At times it looked like a machine and other times it looked out of gas. Our run game seemed non existent but that was mainly because not many run plays were actually called. I didn’t understand the need for running east/west on a team with the speed that Grand Prairie has. We were doing fine running between the tackles and we do have big ones so we should utilize them. We also didn’t get to see any other running back take a snap which surprised me a bit since they looked good in the scrimmage against Denton Ryan.

Overall, the Farmers need to clean up the mistakes and penalties that nearly cost them the game. They’ll also need to fully utilize their strengths (Dotson’s running ability, rotating backs in, etc.). If they do these things, we’ll see a better team next week.

Noteable Mentions: Sr. QB Jordon Dotson with 56 yards rushing on 12 carries and 158 yards passing, some tuff running by Sr. FB Ben Monjaras with 52 yards rushing on 16 carries, Sr. REC Terrick Edwards with 5 catches for 77 yards and a few great punt returns, Sr. DE Joseph Cook & Sr. NG DeAndre Thompson for clogging up the run and applying good pressure, Sr. LB David Curely for making timely tackles and of course Sr. Kicker Will Atterberry for nailing the game winner.

A Look Ahead:

The Farmers take on Garland Naaman Forest next week at home. This will be the biggest pre season test for the Farmers as Naaman Forest returns RB Jonathan Miller who ran over the defense last year and could be an even bigger threat this year. If the Farmers want to win next week, they’ll have to be mistake free.