Hutson determined to help Cache offense improve

Not every high school football player has the qualities to be a good leader, however, Cache head coach Faron Griffin knew that Jacob Hutson was going to be fun to coach when he was being an upbeat leader during his sophomore season.

“Jacob is a sharp kid who was already being a leader his sophomore season when we needed help in that area,” Griffin said. “Many younger players are a bit intimidated when it comes to being a leader but he stepped forward and did his best to help motivate his teammates.”

Hutson is now a two-year starter at offensive guard where he uses his quickness and strength to get the job done.

While lifting is an important part of the game at all levels, there are other ways to improve strength.

“Many of us who grew up on farms got our lifting doing chores,” he said. “My family raised cattle and we had to wrestle with feed bags, hay and that helped many of us get stronger before we even started playing football. There is always something to be done around the place and when I’m not at school or practice there are chores waiting to be done.”

After a busy day of school, football and chores, Hutson is eager to sit down to one of his favorite meals, hamburger steak with grilled onions, gravy and mashed potatoes cooked by his mom.

Hutson, who has attended Cache Public Schools since pre-K, is also attending the Great Plains Technical School where he’s taking HVAC.

“That is something that everyone needs,” Hutson said. “You need air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter, so that career is always going to be needed. Ridge Miller is our instructor and he is really good and he makes things interesting. He is teaching us the things we need to know.”

Hutson then plans to take the basic skills he’s learned and continue his education at Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology in Okmulgee.

“After high school I plan on going to Okmulgee to OSU Tech and learn as much as I can about HVAC because that knowledge will be an asset moving forward,” he said. “My goal is to form my own company. I know that to be successful you have to take care of your customers because that is the most important thing to running a successful business. I believe that attending OSU Tech will help me be as well prepared as possible when it comes to the business part.”

While he may very well come back to Southwest Oklahoma at some point, at first Hutson may go to the far corners of the country.

“To be honest, I might just get a big map and throw a dart and wherever it hits might be where I go to get started,” he said. “I will probably wind up back here at some point but I think seeing another part of the country would be interesting.”

For the next two months Hutson’s focus is on the football program he loves and wants to help succeed.

“We have played a couple of really good teams (Tuttle and Elgin) and we lost those games,” he said. “It was a combination of them being really good teams and us not executing well on offense. I think to get better you need to play good competition. We could be playing a couple of 2A teams but going against these good teams has taught us what we need to do better.”

In between those two resounding losses the Bulldogs beat Altus.

“It was good to walk off the field with a win against Altus,” he said. “We didn’t play very well in that game but we won. I think the team understands that to get better we had to work harder and improve our execution on offense.”

Coach Griffin did what any good coach does after three non-district games and that was to evaluate all phases and make adjustments. In the case of the Bulldogs the coaches decided to simplify the offense, cutting back on some plays and focus on running the others more often and clean up the turnovers and missed assignments.

“While it is kinda disappointing that we had to do that to try and get the offense working better, I am still 100 percent behind our coaches,” he said. “I have a good deal of faith in Coach Griffin and these steps should help us compete in a tough district.”

Cache competes in District 4A-1 with perineal powers like Weatherford, Clinton and Elk City among those standing in the way of Cache’s goal of making the playoffs.

“We all want to make the playoffs and we feel we can accomplish that goal if we get our offense going,” Hutson said. “Our defense has 11 guys swarming to the football and if we can get the offense playing consistent football and not committing turnovers I think we can make the playoffs. We just have to put it all together.”

Hutson is quick to add that he needs to improve his own skills as well.

“I need to stay low because the lower guy usually wins,” he added. “I also want to continue to try and help keep the younger players upbeat and excited. We haven’t played a district game yet, so we have two weeks to prepare for Woodward.”

Hutson says the thing that has to be fixed are the turnovers.

“It is hard to win games when you are turning the ball over multiple times or even once because that can be the difference in winning and losing. I think we have the players to move the football if we just execute like we’ve been taught. I still have faith that we can break a big play now and then.”

With an open date this week, some of the Bulldogs may be relaxing, playing video games or chilling at home but not Hutson.

“I am going to go to Weatherford and watch them play Elgin,” he said. “I love football and with us playing Weatherford in district, I just want to see how they play against Elgin.”

Obviously, Hutson is eager to learn as much as possible be it HVAC or football because as he said, “knowledge is important in whatever you do.”