It’s going to be a week-by-week thing for the Purvis Tornadoes. There are some obvious areas they need to clean up, but coach Brad Hankins is seeing improvements from week to week.
Hankins thought his defense played better last week against West Marion, but the Tornadoes still allowed 232 passing yards on a 17-for-20 performance from the Trojans. That statistic might be a little misleading, according to Hankins.
“The thing about it is a lot of those stats come off a handful of explosive plays,” he said. “We had a third-and-25 and they converted a pass across the middle, and that’s just part of being young, not understanding the game and where we need to be on the field, but I thought we played better. Those young guys are getting experience and growing up a little bit.”
On a positive note, West Marion only had 130 yards on the ground – averaging 4.5 yards per carry. In the first quarter, Purvis had the early lead and was in a position to add to it, but a holding penalty put the offense in reverse.
That’s just one example of the little things Hankins wants to be cleaned up.
“Just the little things we need to take care,” Hankins said. “Where we need to put our head, how to use our hands, if I’m a force player then always keeping my leverage and not putting my head inside. A lot of it is fundamentals, then when you get to your team periods, you just have to make sure that everything you’ve told them falls into place.”
This week, Purvis hosts its first home game of the season, and Hankins couldn’t be more excited. He said he was getting tired of loading up the buses and leaving Purvis High School at 4:15 p.m. every Friday.
Columbia Academy comes to town Friday night afternoon defeating Presbyterian Christian 34-14 last week. The Cougars did lose their season-opener to Silliman Institute, 15-14, so the defense has played well through two games.
“They have some big kids,” Hankins said. “It’s hard to tell how big they are because they’re all about the same size. 6-foot-3-inch, 6-4 standing in there, so it’s going to be tough sledding for us to move the football.”
The Tornadoes offensive line will have a difficult challenge this week, and so will sophomore running back Wayne Ray. Coming into the season Hankins said he’ll have running-back-by-committee this season, but Ray has become the workhorse for the offense.
He’s carried the ball 17 times in each of the first two games, and he’s collected 129 yards and a touchdown. He averaged nearly five yards per rushing attempt against West Marion.
“Wayne has done a good job,” he said. “He’s figuring it out, too, just like those guys up front. He’s going to be a special one for us, we hope.”
Offensively, Columbia Academy has put up impressive numbers so far in this season. Junior quarterback Ras Pace has 408 passing yards, four touchdowns and an interception on just 44 percent passing. Three different running backs have combined for 263 rushing yards and three scores.
“They have a lot of RPO stuff, and (Pace) does a good job of reading it,” Hankins said. “When he does pull it, he runs the ball really well. He’s a good player and the scheme they have and the scheme they’re running is good stuff.”
