Published: November 04, 2009 08:17 am      

Outlaws want to play spoiler

MARLOW — Marlow Outlaw head coach Barry Foster knows that his team is playing for pride and the satisfaction of a win.

The Outlaws (3-6, 2-4) are out of the playoff picture and are coming off of a 37-6 loss to the Madill Wildcats. This week’s opponent, the Lone Grove Longhorns (4-5, 2-4), are coming off of a 23-15 loss to the Dickson Comets, a team Marlow beat in overtime in Week 8, 13-6. However, the Longhorns can be a playoff team with a win.

There is a little more incentive for Foster to pull off a win. If Foster wins, his younger brother, Kevin, who is the head coach at Pauls Valley, has a chance to be third in the district.

“Personally, if we win they (the Pauls Valley Panthers) are going to be in,” Foster said. “If they win they have a chance to be third. For him, I’d like it. I know he doesn’t want to go to Tuttle in the first round again. Just to be in the playoffs, that is what you shoot for. Once you get in anything can happen.”

The Longhorns have a sophomore quarterback in Jacob McClennahan and a new offensive coordinator, but have had a lot of success on offense.

“That is what is surprising to me,” Foster said. “They graduated their quarterback from last year, and lost Tim Beard, their offensive coordinator, so I thought offensively they might have some problems, but that is there strong point.”

The Longhorns have also changed the defense that they run to a 3-3-5, or an odd-stack.

“They run an odd-stack — what we do,” Foster said. “Kenny Ridley is from Marlow, and he talked to Jeremy Gage, our former defensive coordinator, about the odd-stack. We knew last spring that is what they were going to run. They have had some struggles, but they have athletes and they are going to play lights out against us.”

Looking back over the season, Foster said that there were some struggles early in the season, but things have come together as of late.

“If you’ll go back to four or five weeks ago we were really struggling. The first two games we didn’t play very well against two good opponents, Tuttle and Elgin. The effort just wasn’t there,” Foster said. “Then turned around and played well against Comanche — probably one of our best games. We went over to Pauls Valley and just laid an egg. We felt like we could have played with them if we wouldn’t have hurt ourselves.

“Fighting through injuries, sickness and not wanting to be out there — it has been a struggle. Most of our guys have really hung in there. Against Dickson, winning that in overtime, I think that showed a lot of character — that we were still fighting. Against Madill, they are going to win our district, we fought with them and competed. That’s what we’re looking at right now. If we can beat Lone Grove this week, we’ll have beaten every team we beat last year with the exception of Elgin. So I look at it as a somewhat successful season.”