The Malakoff Tigers started a season full of high expectations when players arrived for this year's first official practice on Monday.
The Tigers are coming off a state semifinal run last year and enter 2023 ranked No. 5 in the state by Dave Campbell Texas Football.
"They (the players) know expectations are high, and they're kind of pushing each other a little bit," Coach Jamie Driskell told me during a phone interview Tuesday. "It's always good to see those guys trying to make each other better."
The early part of the season is about evaluating team strengths and weaknesses, which change from year to year, Coach Driskell said.
"We have the same base schemes every year," he said, "but we tweak it to fit our kids and what we're good at it and maybe not do what we're not so good at."
That process takes time, but he knows he's already got the building blocks for a good defense.
"Defensively, we have a lot of returning starters," Coach Driskell said. 'We look really fast, and those kids know our defense kind of like the back of their hand."
The Tigers will need to rely on those returning starters to reach their goals.
"We're expecting to be a good team every year," said Coach Driskell, "but it's tough. You're going to get teams' best every week, and they're going to get fired up to play Malakoff. And our kids have got to understand that. And they have, for the most part. There've been weeks where we didn't play as well throughout seasons, but all in all, it's been good through the last few years of kids, understanding that these non-district games, we got to continue to get better and think about the big picture, and they've done a good job with that."
The Tigers will travel to Arp for a scrimmage on Friday, Aug. 11. They will then host Crockett for a scrimmage on Thursday, Aug. 17, for the annual Meet the Tigers and Soap Scrimmage.
Listen to the podcast to hear about other topics from Coach Driskell:
* How are they beating the heat?
* Schedule for first two weeks of practice.
* Handling expectations.
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