The Cougar football team took a tough loss Saturday, falling 2-12 to a much-improved Cave Spring Knight squad. This week the 2-2 Cougars will look to get back in the win column against the Hidden Valley Titans.
The Titans are another team that has struggled this season. The come into the contest 2-3 on the season with wins against William Byrd and Northside. Their losses came against Cave Spring, Glenvar, and Franklin County.
Last week in their 47-14 loss against Franklin County, the Titans scored twice through the air, but gave away any form of advantage they could have earned by committing six turnovers.
The Titans are under the direction of Head Coach Scott Weaver, who is in his 14th season as head coach. During his time at Hidden Valley, the Titans have a record of 65 wins and 80 losses, but have made the playoffs 10 out of his 14 seasons.
Pulaski County leads the series with Hidden Valley 10 games to nine, but the Titans won the matchup last season 21-28 in Roanoke.
“We’re going to need to play better than we did last week for sure,” Cougar Head Coach Cam Akers said. “Our offensive line didn’t get very much movement up front. We only gained 30 yards on the ground. That’s unacceptable. Our secondary gave up 10 catches for 146 yards and two touchdowns. We had some good things happen, but overall, there were too many mistakes for us to get the win. We can’t afford to play like that.”
The Cougars came into the season realizing they were young in spots and inexperienced in others. Add to that the fact that they’re putting in a new offensive system, and a learning curve can be expected. What Coach Akers doesn’t want to do is move backward.
“I thought we did a much better job on cutting down on the penalties,” Akers said. “We did a pretty good job of shutting down their running game most of the night too. We only gave up 76 yards on the ground. We did have some sloppy tackling, and we can’t do that. We just need to play better overall.”
With the loss Saturday, the Cougars move to 2-2 on the season. While the official VHSL Power Ratings aren’t out yet, the numbers show that the Cougars are still right on the edge.
Orange County is in the top spot with a 4-0 record and a 24.00 rating. Louisa County is second at 5-0 and 23.20 points. Salem moves to third with a 4-1 record and the same 23.20 rating. Amherst County is fourth at 4-0 and 23.00 points. Halifax County dropped to 3-1 and are now at 23.00 as well. EC Glass is now 4-1 with a 22.40 rating in sixth place. Western Albemarle is seventh with a 3-1 record and 20.75 rating. Jefferson Forest is eighth at 2-2 and 20.00 points.
The Cougars remain in ninth place, one place out of qualifying for the playoffs. There 2-2 record has earned an 18.25 rating. Mecklenburg County is 10th at 1-4 and 16.60. GW Danville is a very surprising 0-3 and have a 14.00 rating. Blacksburg is in the final spot with an 0-4 record and 13.50 rating.
These ratings and records will all, of course, change as the season moves forward. For the Cougars to have a shot at a playoff spot, they will need to win at least a few more games. Hidden Valley would be a good spot to start. Blacksburg also looks like a good opportunity. Outside of that, the situation gets much tougher.
Salem will continue to get better each week. Graham is going to be very solid, plus that game is at Mitchell Stadium. Patrick Henry is continuing to show improvement after their season opening loss, and they are now 3-1. Christiansburg took their first loss last week, falling to Radford, but they are 3-1 as well.
“We’ve told our kids the same thing all season,” Coach Akers said. “It’s about focusing on our jobs and executing. We can’t control what the other teams do, but we can control what we do. The next few years for this program look pretty bright with the talent we see coming, but we’re pretty excited about making some noise right now too.”
For now, the lineups will remain the same for Pulaski County. The team does have a few players with the normal bangs and bruises, but the regular starters should be fine for the game this week.
As has happened in the past, the current weather forecast could have an impact on the schedule. Currently, the weather looks rough for Friday night with thunderstorms, heavy rains and flash flooding possible through the weekend. There is a chance that with that forecast, the game could be moved to Thursday night. If that does happen, be sure to watch our social media page for updates.