After season-opening blowout, Sabine tries to put it together

JUST ONE GAME - That's the way Sabine head football coach and athletic director Greg Anderson wants the Cardinals (left) to see last weekend's season-opening 53-12 loss to Troup - just one game. The Cardinals (0-1) visit equally-tough Jefferson on Friday, and the schedule does them no favors. Sabine is in the same district with - and must make road trips to - Gilmer and Spring Hill. Sabine took the assignment of facing 2A football power Troup in the Gladewater Kickoff Classic last weekend and ran into a buzzsaw.

Actually, Sabine might have been driving the buzzsaw, coach Greg Anderson said.

"Troup is very good," the second-year Cardinals coach said Wednesday. "But when we brought our kids in Monday and watched the film, they realized what we did: about 99 percent of what happened in that game wasn't what Troup did to us. It was what we did to us."

Sabine's five turnovers allowed Troup to completely claim momentum in a Saturday evening contest Troup wound up winning 53-12.

"We punted after the first possession," Anderson recalled, noting how much of an effect the turnovers played in the game, "and then we didn't punt again until the last one."

There were many things that Sabine coaches wanted to improve after last weekend's season opener. But there were some things that they were impressed by, Anderson noted.

"(Running back Ryan) Kennedy really ran the ball well," said the coach. Kennedy finished the game with no touchdowns, but had 94 yards. "I thought (quarterback) Josh Herrod did a good job, outside of the two balls he put on the ground. The offensive line made some mental mistakes, but the effort there was good."

Also for Sabine, Desmond Perry caught a pass for 41 yards.

Defensively, it was also hard to find a bright spot. The Cardinals allowed 152 yards and four touchdowns to Troup's now all-time leading rusher, Chris Davis. One of the highlights of the game was when Sabine's Travis Hatt picked off Troup quarterback Chance Steel, but before the Cardinals could score, Sabine's offense broke down again, handing the ball back to Troup on another fumble. The end result: the third straight win for Troup over Sabine (who last defeated the Tigers in 2002).

Now, the Cardinals have another similar challenge: they travel to Jefferson, another Class 2A power, this Friday night. Jefferson is ranked No. 7 in the Associated Press' Texas high school 2A poll.

"They're very talented, very athletic," Anderson said of Jefferson. "I had the opportunity to watch them last week (in a 60-21 win over Pittsburg). Jefferson did a lot of things well, don't get me wrong, but Pittsburg had a lot of the same problems that we did."

The Cardinals play a difficult 2006 schedule - road games at Troup (done) and Jefferson (now), with road games at state-favored Gilmer and Spring Hill down the road.

The Cards haven't faced Jefferson since the 2003 season, when Jefferson shut down Sabine, 27-0, in Liberty City. The year before that, though, many Cards fans may remember that it was Jefferson that defeated Sabine, 23-21, snapping a Cardinal fivegame winning streak.