WEST POINT — Chris Craven isn’t a big fan of looking ahead or in the past.
The second-year Oak Hill Academy football coach prefers to take a more focused approach to determine what is going to help his team have success on game day. Craven doesn’t believe past results will dictate how a game will turn out. Instead, he feels wins and losses in previous seasons only serve as fodder for people to discuss prior to the latest matchup.
Craven can relay on recent history to prove his theory. In the first two weeks of the 2016 season, Craven has watched his team deliver an undisciplined performance in a loss to Newton County Academy in Week 1. A year ago, Oak Hill Academy defeated Newton County Academy. Last week, Tupelo Christian Prep showed it had improved from 2015, when Oak Hill Academy earned a 42-point victory. Still, the Raiders evened their record with a 31-15 road victory.
“In our first two games we have learned inexperience was a factor we had to overcome,” Craven said. “We also learned whether we are talking about an inexperienced player, a young player, or a senior, we have to be more disciplined and focused and do the little things if we wanted to get this ballclub where it could win.”
Craven hopes his theory continues to hold true at 7 tonight when Oak Hill Academy will play host to Heritage Academy in its home opener. For the record, Heritage Academy has won the last nine meetings, including a 10-0 victory last season in Columbus. The injury quarterback Ken “Buddy” Dill suffered in that game was one of many that plagued the Raiders in what turned out to be a seven-win season and a loss in the first round of the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools (MAIS) Class A-AA playoffs.
This season, Craven faces similar depth issues with right around 20 players. He hopes the Raiders can avoid injuries and stay healthy this week and in the next two games against West Memphis Christian and Marshall Academy before they play host to Winona Christian in their Class A-AA, District 2 opener. That game likely will go a long way to determining the district champion.
Last season, an injury to then-senior running back Drew Riley forced him to miss the game against Winona Christian, which Oak Hill Academy lost 24-7 in Winona.
Craven credited Newton County Academy for its power running game that gave his team problems in the opener. But he said his team had to iron out issues, especially ill-advised penalties, that played a factor in the loss. He said he saw “good step forward” last week against Tupelo Christian Prep. Macon McBrayer had two touchdown runs, Collins Brown had a 55-yard touchdown run, and Dill hit James Peavy for a 60-yard touchdown pass. Grayson Easterling added a 21-yard field goal to account for the scoring.
Craven said the maturation of his team is going to be a “process” to get the players to understand they need to adopt a similar attitude that the 2015 team had. He said the Raiders accepted playing multiple positions due to injuries and picked each other up. He hopes to see more of that tonight so it can build off the momentum it gained in a “smarter” effort than he saw in Week 1.
“We do have a decent ballclub,” Craven said. “We have some athletic ability. We can throw and we can run. We have a decent line. We are not afraid to be physical, but it doesn’t matter what team it is or their capabilities are, if they are undisciplined and inexperienced, there are going to be struggles along the way.”
Craven said the Raiders had a good week of practice and is still putting new stuff. He said the installation continues due to the experience level of some of the players. He anticipates the Raiders will use a few new looks this week that he hopes will give opponents more to prepare for and add to their ability to make plays.
Heritage Academy coach Sean Harrison said his team also will have a few new wrinkles this week coming off a 26-6 loss to Lamar School that left his team at 1-1. While Harrison was pleased with how hard the Class AAA Patriots played against the Class AAAA Raiders, he said his team received a “reality check” following its season-opening victory against Columbus Christian Academy.
“We finally got instances that we could really show them the mistakes they were making rather than we kept telling them it was going to happen,” Harrison said. “When it did happen, we got to show them.”
In reviewing the film from the game against Lamar School, Harrison said he was too conservative in his play calling and that the Patriots were too one-dimensional as a running team. He said the team will try to develop a more effective passing game with senior quarterback Tyler Anderson. He said he also will try to find more ways to get the ball to junior running back Dontae Gray and senior running back Dylan Hughes.
Harrison said he got into a rhythm of “run, run, pass,” which he said can’t happen. As a result, the Patriots faced too many third-and-long situations. Even though Anderson had plenty of passes his teammates didn’t catch, Harrison said it was difficult to put his quarterback and offense in situations where they had to make up too many yards.
“When you have to defend every position in our offense, that is what is going to open our offense,” Harrison said. “People haven’t had to defend (Tyler) running. People haven’t had to defend Dontae at receiver very much. That is what we have to put people in a bind doing.
“(Watching the Lamar game again) helped because some of the stuff I didn’t call I was worried we couldn’t do it or the defense was giving us something that would stop it. Watching film, that wasn’t the case. It was a really bad coaching job. I am going to get it right, and the kids are going to get it right and we will be good to go.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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