North Greene will be looking to bounce back on Thursday evening after a tough loss to cross-county rival West Greene in last week’s season opener.
The Huskies will now look to earn their first win of the season against Castlewood, Virginia, a team North Greene beat 36-0 last year.
“We had a lot of self-inflicted problems last week,” Tilson said. “That’s everything from my play calling to execution of techniques and assignments. But the good thing is everything is correctible. It’s things like depth on certain route combinations to making sure our shoulders are square on blocks.
“I think we want success so bad and we are pushing the envelope, but from our stand point it’s not coming fast enough. It does get frustrating when you want to win that bad, and I think it humbled everybody. We have to get back to work and make sure we are doing what we are supposed to.”
Thursday’s contest will be anything but routine for the Huskies. They will be working on a short week with the Thursday kickoff. Castlewood will be playing in its first game under a new head coach, which has made game planning more difficult. In addition to that it’s also homecoming week for North Greene, which means a lot of non-football pomp and circumstance will impact the Huskies’ pre-game routine.
“If you ask any head coach if they like homecoming the resounding answer is that they hate it,” Tilson said. “It’s a short week, it’s early in the season and it’s homecoming. But, we get to get all of the distractions out of the way early. I think it should be and exciting atmosphere on Thursday. Both teams are out of school Friday, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
Tilson expects the matchup with the Blue Devils to be one of contrasting styles with Castlewood relying on its size and power while he feels like the Huskies have a speed a quickness advantage.
The Huskies are preparing for two-back sets that run down hill, similar to what West Greene did last week, but with more handoffs and fewer quarterbacks runs.
“It may be a clash of styles. But if we go out and execute we only have ourselves to worry about,” Tilson said. “If we go out and do what we are supposed to do we can have a lot of success. I do believe we are a good team, and that gives us a chance every week.”
The Huskies expect the Blue Devils to run a 4-4 defense and stick to cover three in the secondary. That is a defense their passing game had success against over the offseason and Tilson is hopeful to get receivers Jake Duffy and Brandon Weems touches on the perimeter this week.
“I think our skill guys on the outside can have success. I feel confident about that going into the game. But we have to execute,” Tilson said.
Kickoff for Thursday is set for 7 p.m. The Huskies and Blue Devils have met each of the last three years. In 2023 North Greene won 36-0, in 2022 Castlewood won 49-20 and in 2021 it was North Greene 22-6.
