An early season Homecoming matchup Friday night at Paul Laird Field has the Durant Lions focused on picking up their initial victory as a talented Broken Bow squad comes to town.
Kickoff is scheduled for 7:30 with Homecoming festivities preceding the contest.
The Savages have a new head coach in Maverick Lang and are coming off a 3726 loss at McAlester in their Zero Week contest, but will have the most dynamic talent on the field at the quarterback position.
Multi-sport talent Greydon Howell leads the Savages offensively as just a sophomore and is an extremely dangerous dual threat with his speed and a strong arm as the Broken Bow playmaker.
“Their quarterback is really, really athletic,” Durant head coach Todd Vargas stated. “He’s a lefty. He’s blazing fast and definitely their go-to guy. They also have a tough running back with size and quickness. They’re going to get in a lot of different sets and try to find wrinkles where you don’t line up right defensively. That’s all it takes with their explosiveness.
“Broken Bow may not be as talented as Ada defensively but they still are a very good team. Their new head coach has done a really good job and they have several guys out that didn’t even play last year. We definitely don’t have any cupcakes on the schedule, so there’s no easy task.”
Howell was just one of the offensive spark plugs against McAlester as 6-3, 210-pound running back Quinlan Bailey also proved to be a workhorse out of the backfield.
The Savages’ defense was victimized by a few long scoring tosses by McAlester in the opener, which could bode well for the Durant passing game this week. Quarterback Cole Robbins was limited to 75 yards through the air in Game 1.
“There’s no doubt we have to find a way to corral the quarterback,” Vargas admitted. “He’s lightning in a bottle. If he gets to the second level we don’t have anyone that can catch him. He is going to have his plays but we just have to limit his explosive plays and make tackles when we have the opportunity. Defensively we just need to do what we do.
“On offense we need to pound the football, be more physical in the trenches and cut the mistakes out. We have to pay attention to details and if we can do that I feel like we can come away with our first win.”