Winona football Coach Joey Tompkins has certainly gotten a crash course on the COVID virus this season.
Starting with summer workouts and continuing with split-learning once school started to losing games and rescheduling, Tompkins has about seen it all.
He got another lesson when his team went into quarantine for the last two weeks and will head into Friday night’s playoff game with just three practices under their belt as the Tigers get ready to host Kossuth on Friday night.
“The bad part is just the experience factor,” Tompkins said. “Normally by this point of the season, we would have played 11 football games with a scrimmage, but we have played seven. Normally, you feel like those sophomores who have had to play are like juniors, but that’s not really the case. And all of that is because of experience. You can’t replace game reps. You can say that you practice hard, but nothing takes the place of game experience.”
The Tigers, who finished 6-1 with its lone loss coming to Madison Central, will face Kossuth, who is 3-6 on the season and the No. 4 seed out of Region 1-3A. The Aggies have won two in a row to close out the season with wins over Belmont (56-10) and Alcorn. Central (32-12). They opened the season with a 26-14 win over Mooreville. The have losses to Adamsville, Tenn. (28-7), Corinth (66-27), Senatobia (49-22), Amory (37-29), Nettleton (55-20) and Booneville (38-7).
“They are pretty good on offense,” Tompkins said. “They have scored a lot of points but have also giving up some points as well. They get in a lot of different formations and throw the ball around a good bit. They will make you defend everything. They will be in five wides on one play and then come back and be in two tight Power I on the next play. So we’ve got to just a few days to get our kids prepared for that.”
Tompkins said he has been in touch with his players during the virus and shared film with them but didn’t know who his opponent was going to be until Friday night.
“It’s a huge disadvantage but there’s nothing we can do about it,” Tompkins said. “It’s not ideal. With a short week and two weeks off, we will have to get a lot of stuff done in a short amount of time. But at the same time, we are glad to be playing this week. It could be worse, we could have had to forfeit this week.”
