The Floydada Whirlwinds hold their first practice in pads as part of "Midnight Madness" on August 6, 2022. (Jennifer Brittain/Used with Permission)
FLOYDADA – Everything is pretty much still in the ‘honeymoon’ stage for Texas high school football teams in preparing for the upcoming 2022 football season. Workouts are in their second week and full pads with contact has been going on since Saturday, August 6.
This Thursday, the Floydada Whirlwinds will have their first scrimmage against an always solid program of the Farwell Steers at W.M Roberts Stadium. “There are three main things I want to come out of this scrimmage is good execution, to play hard every play, and fly-around on defense. If we do this, good things will happen,” Head Coach J.R. Compton tells the Record.
“Practices have been going very well. The players have retained a whole lot from the previous season. We are many miles ahead of where we were this time a year ago,” explained Compton, who is starting his second year as the Whirlwinds head coach.
Compton believes that Floydada will face a tough test against the Steers on Thursday. He respects Farwell to be a good solid team with tough kids. The Steers should be led by junior running back Corey Stancell who rushed for 2,100-yards and 35-touchdowns in Farwell’s 8-3 season in 2021. Farwell was the runner up to the Panhandle Panthers in their district. Stancell was first team on the South Plains Super Team for small schools by the Lubbock A-J’s Lone Star Varsity. The Steers also have a veteran quarterback in senior Alec Atkinson and a total of eight returning starters on each offense and defense. Farwell is far more than a one-person show.
“We had some good individual performances in the Midnight intra-squad scrimmage on Saturday morning. Saul Reyes made some nice plays at wide receiver. Ty Henderson had a good outing at quarterback. The defense had some good stuff. In this scrimmage we made sure everyone of our running backs had at least one carry, and all receivers had a pass intended for them. It’s still early and we are constantly evaluating where each player should be to help the team,” Compton said.
Compton appears to be confident that Floydada should have a balanced attack of running and passing the ball, plus a defense that will compete. Thursday’s scrimmage between Floydada and Farwell will begin at 5:00 p.m.
