Marlow faces acid test against Millwood

True high school football fans know the importance of practicing on Thanksgiving week because in Oklahoma that’s going to mean your team has advanced to the state semifinals.

Thursday members of the Marlow football team practiced in the morning and then sat down with family to enjoy a good Thanksgiving meal. And we are pretty sure they were talking Outlaws’ football around the table.

For this senior class at Marlow, for three of the last four years they’ve been practicing this weekend and that means this experience is nothing new to this bunch. Last year the semifinal opponent was mighty Heritage Hall and the Outlaws took the Crusaders down to the final play before falling in a heartbreaker.

“This is a big deal for these seniors because they’ve gotten to the semifinals three out of their final four years,” Marlow head coach Matt Weber said. “Seeing the guys ahead of them make it this far and knowing the tradition here, this group has done a great job. The last two weeks we trailed at halftime but these guys refuse to quit. It’s going to take a great effort but they feel good going into this game.”

Millwood is loaded, like is so often the case.

Xzavier Thompson is a senior wide receiver who has signed with Arizona State and he’s a tough matchup for any defense.

“They have that receiver who signed with Arizona State and he’s tough to tackle so we have to get to him quick and not let him behind us,” Weber said. “They also have a quarterback who is a DI guy and they have a really good linebacker who is 6-0, 220 and is probably their best overall player. Then you throw in two offensive tackles who go 340 and 360 and they are loaded everywhere. Heck, we don’t have two kids who weigh that much together.”

But the good thing going for the Outlaws is their defense has been helping hold the group together while the younger players on offense learned their roles.

“We have a couple of guys who have really done a great job on defense for us,” Weber said. “Brantz Bateman is a great wrestler and he has great strength and he knows all about leverage. And Korbin Dittner is another wrestler who is about 200 and does a great job at inside linebacker.”

Another big factor is the addition of a new defensive coordinator Colby Shamley, who Weber added to the staff in the off-season.

“Colby has done a good job with the defense and they’ve been keeping us in games,” Weber said. “We have to play good defense against these guys because they have some talent for sure.”

The defense was critical early as Blayd Harris got his feet wet running the Marlow offense.

“One thing that I know is that Blayd is our No. 1 competitor; he is going to give it everything he has until the game is over,” Weber said. “We have some other guys stepping up on offense. We got the ball to Jaxson Murray last week and he made a couple of big plays for us. Pound-for-pound he may be our strongest guy. He’s another wrestler and really works on the weights and he’s one of our fastest kids.”

This week the offense has to play better, though.

“We shot ourselves in the foot a couple of times last week and we can’t do that against this bunch,” Weber said. “Our line is coming around. We had a good deal of turnover on that group but they are coming around. We need to control the ball and not turn it over.”

So, we are feeling good entering this week after picking the right winners for all three of the remaining area teams, Elgin, Marlow and Tipton. Elgin and Tipton have this weekend off but will be playing semifinal games next Friday.

While we would be happy to predict a win for the Outlaws, it is hard to pull the ripcord on my chute and take that leap. Coach Weber is not one to mince words and if he says this is a great Millwood team, I can’t go against his judgement since he’s seen much more Millwood video than this writer.

Kickoff in the game will be at 7 p.m. at Noble High School.

After pondering this pick for 24 hours, as much as I want to pick an upset, I’m going to go with this prediction: Millwood 28, Marlow 21.