A season ago Coach Evan Monroe took his West Greene Buffaloes to Roan Mountain and squeezed out a 28-22 victory. On Thursday night the Highlanders come to Mosheim looking for revenge while Monroe and his Buffs look to make it two in a row for West Greene over the Landers.
Monroe says, “I don’t know how many 1A region titles cloudland has won over the years but they got them by discipline and coming right at you, you always know what you’re going to get with them and for us to win Thursdays night we’ve got to be ready and have discipline ourselves and come right at them.”
Last week the Buffaloes fell behind North Greene 16-0 but put things together, regrouped, scored 32 unanswered points on the way to a 32-16 win.
There’s an old saying in football that a team’s biggest improvement comes between games one and two. The Buffs 32 unanswered points at North Greene is something to build on. West Greene also may have left some points on the field with some early season errors and that gives Monroe some things to clean up to beat a team like Cloudland.
Quarterback Austin Franklin led West Greene last week with 164 rushing yards and two touchdowns. The Buffs’ stepped up big in the second half and held the Huskies to just seven yards.
With this being a Thursday-night game Monroe says, “We don’t change much from our normal routine, playing on Thursday has it’s good points and bad, it’s a double edged sword, but we try to stick to our routine.”
With the short week combined with the expected 90-plus degree temperatures, cramping could be an issue, on both sides of the field.
Monroe says, “We just have to stay hydrated and as cool as possible, the TSSAA has rules just for this situation and we follow these rules. The safety and health of our players is the most important thing, so we’re doing our best to keep fluid in these guys.”
Cloudland has been a force to reckon with for what seems to be forever in East Tennessee and, but the Highlanders were shut out by Happy Valley last week 19-0 in their season debut. But don’t let that score fool you because a team of Cloudland’s caliber can catch fire at any moment and Monroe and his herd of Buffalo know that and must be ready in order to improve to 2-0 on the young season.
This game is not a conference game, but it is a game that would build the confidence of the Buffs moving forward. It’s an early kickoff, 7 pm, also there is no school Friday so a huge crowd is expected in Mosheim. If you plan on attending the game you may want to get there a little early and plan on the after game traffic for what should be a dandy.
