Opportunity.
That’s what the Durant Lions are looking forward to Friday night as they open the District 5A-3 football campaign on the road against powerhouse Booker T. Washington in north Tulsa.
The Hornets entered the season tabbed as the choice of coaches to claim the league title and are off to a 2-1 start in non-district play with their usual abundance of talent. They tripped 6A Muskogee, 21-14, in their opener before a 38-7 loss to 5A powerhouse Del City. Booker T then rebounded with a 51-0 drubbing of Tulsa Central before having last week off like Durant.
An athletic group that includes several players with college scholarship offers presents a big hurdle, but one that Durant head coach Todd Vargas and company are squaring up head on with a chance to make a major statement and shake up the District 5A-3 race in just the first week of play.
“They will be one of the most athletic teams we will face this year,” Vargas said of the Hornets. “They have an extremely talented defensive line with speed. They are obviously picked number one in the district for a reason. They beat a really good Muskogee team and lost to one of the top teams in our class in Del City.
“With their new coaching staff, they like to throw it more than run offensively, but they have a small, quick running back that is very elusive. We’ve got to do a really good job of tackling on Friday.”
Booker T Washington lost last year’s district Defensive Player of the Year Joseph Graves to IMG Academy in Florida but the Hornets are definitely not void of high-level talent.
This year’s stalwart is junior defensive lineman Dawayne Jones, who is already sporting a whopping 24 Division 1 scholarship offers. He is ranked as the 26th best defensive lineman in the entire country.
Several other catalysts should make them one of the stingiest defenses in the league this year.
Durant, meanwhile, took advantage of the off week to add a few new wrinkles into the game plan as well as fine tuning other areas after their 24-0 victory over Gravette, Arkansas.
“We have a few bumps and bruises we were able to heal up,” Vargas said. “We also put in a few new packages that we think could help us against a very aggressive defense this week. It is really going to come down to execution this week. We feel positive about our game plan. We just have to go out and perform, even in a hostile environment, because that’s the situation you could see in the playoffs.
“We talked at length this week about the opportunity in front of us to go do something that really can direct our whole season and be a signature win for this program.”
