Although they stayed pretty vanilla offensively in last week’s scrimmage, Caddo head coach Jeff Wigington saw many encouraging things in that showdown with defending Class B Division 2 state champ Weleetka.
The Bruins found paydirt twice against the Outlaws in the live portion of the event while allowing three touchdowns, although the final of those came against the second team.
Caddo’s touchdowns came on a 35-yard scoring toss from Cale Wigington to Jake McKay as well as a spectacular 70-yard touchdown burst from Bayler Black.
“I was pleased with how we played against a really good football team,” Coach Wigington stated. “They graduated some key players but still have a ton of athletic weapons. I was really impressed with Bayler Black’s explosiveness in the backfield. He can do some really good things with his feet and runs behind his pads well. It’s going to be exciting to see because defenses can’t just focus on Cale running the ball.
“We were pretty vanilla and didn’t run Cale so that handcuffed our offense somewhat. We leaned on running the inside zone and threw it a bit. We got out relatively healthy and found out some things we need to work on. We are fixing some areas and it’s going to be exciting to see where we are going to be in development a few weeks from now.”
Expect the Bruins to open up the playbook in Friday night’s Aug. 29 home opener with Thackerville as Cale Wigington, who was the District Offensive Player of the Year a season ago, gets in gear while looking to add to his 3,176 yards of total offense and 49 combined touchdowns as a junior.
Black adds a burst in the backfield with McKay back as the top receiving option after accounting for 762 yards and 10 touchdown grabs last year.
Thackerville may be a bit of an unknown commodity with a new coaching staff and new system in 2025 from what Caddo has seen from the Wildcats in recent years.
The Caddo skipper however is quick to point out that the focus of the Bruins will be just on improvement.
“We watched Thackerville scrimmage and they have quite a bit of turnover from last year,” he added. “They have a couple of kids you have to worry about in the backfield. They are a heavy run squad and have a 4-2 look defensively. We will have to scheme them a little to throw the ball.
“Our focus is on us though. We want to keep correcting things and open the offense up a little more and see what happens. We are going to see if we can get some scores early and get the ball in Black and McKay’s hands when we can. We have some playmakers. We are going to try to go fast and catch them with our speed. It should be a good game.”