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Evening score is pursuit of Plano in MacArthur rematch
BY Matt Welch, mwelch@acnpapers.com
In continuing its pursuit through non-district pastures, the Plano Senior football team will endure a blast from seasons past this evening.
It’s a familiar one and one that has simmered in the Wildcats’ mental pool for the past year as evening the score opposite Irving MacArthur takes center stage today from Clark Stadium at 7:30 p.m.
“Irving MacArthur is a very, very good football team,” said Jaydon McCullough, Plano head coach. “They are a playoff team … If we can pull out a win against them, it’s going to be a great victory but golly, that’s not going to be easy.”
There, Plano chased a 14-0 deficit for the game’s final three quarters and despite steadily amassing 13 points of its own, couldn’t get over the hump.
The opportunities were there though, as that night saw Plano miss a pair of field goals, an extra point, drop multiple touchdown passes and force a trio of fourth-quarter turnovers; all cogs in what ended up being a 14-13 defeat.
“I felt like we had every opportunity to win that game last year and we didn’t,” McCullough said. “That left a bitter taste in my mouth, especially in that I felt with the team we had then, we needed confidence and momentum.”
Now one season older and one season wiser, both teams take to the gridiron this evening with each boasting victories during Week 0.
For Plano, it meant overcoming a quartet of turnovers to turn away Garland Lakeview Centennial, 35-18, behind a 21-point fourth quarter. For the ups and downs last Friday’s game showcased, McCullough took pause in the experience gained by some of the team’s underclassmen.
“This is largely a junior-senior football team but we had a lot of kids out there on Friday playing for the first time in that role,” he said. Anybody who has experienced that knows the game feels like it’s going a million miles an hour; but the more you get used to it, the more it slows down.”
The Cardinals scored a comfortable win of their own to open the season, downing Mansfield Timberview by the count of 26-10.
Holding Timberview to just six first downs on the night, a stingy defense and balanced offense carried the way for MacArthur; the latter being a far cry from what Plano will be in for tonight.
Passing the ball just 10 times during its first matchup with Plano, countered by 42 rushes, MacArthur kept Timberview honest to the tune of 25 passes to 34 rushes. The upheaval in the Cardinals’ air attack stemmed from senior Shahzeb Khan, who will quarterback MacArthur this season.
Jason Frimpong, who took the reins of the Cardinals offense last year, will now operate alongside Oklahoma State commit Johnny Haynes in the backfield.
The rushing tandem marks the core of an offense that returns seven starters from 2009, where MacArthur finished 6-5 and advanced to the postseason. Plano’s secondary of seniors Blair Burns and Collin Brence will also be handed the task of containing receiver DeMichael Washington, a 6-foot-3 wide out who McCullough compared to Terrell Owens.
Defensively, the dropoff from last season doesn’t extend much further as six Cardinals re-enter the fold. Headlining that mantle are cornerback and Notre Dame commit Jalen Brown and linebacker Rallante Wilson.
“[Wilson] is a fireplug,” McCullough said. “You’ve got to know where he is at all times and be ready to pick him up.”
Brown will make for Plano senior receiver Brandon Hamilton’s toughest task-to-date, as the Wildcat will target an encore after last week’s 157-yard, two-touchdown performance against Lakeview.
Regarding the MacArthur defense, McCullough emphasized the unit’s consistency and its year-to-year continuity gives credence to that notion. On that same note, consistency will be key for Plano as three quarters of turnover-laden football were offset by a high-flying fourth frame against Lakeview.
In honing in on those consistencies, the Wildcats have a chance to reverse their woes from last year in one more way with a possible 2-0 start.
“This is going to be a challenge,” McCullough said, “but no matter what happens I think it’ll be a good experience for our football program in that this will be a test and one of those games that will help us see where we’re at to get us in that frame of mind for every week in 8-5A.”
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