The road doesn’t get any easier for the Eagles this week when they travel to Northwest Arkansas to play the West Fork Tigers. West Fork has a new coach, Rodney Selfph, who led the Tigers to three conference titles from 2008-10 and a whole host of returning experience and talent. West Fork will be a contender for the state playoffs out of the 3A-1 conference.
West Fork was 3-8 a year ago, defeating Mansfield, Lavaca, and Greenland. The Tigers were a number five seed from the conference in the state playoffs, and lost to a top-seeded Harding Academy Wildcats team by the score of 56-6 in the first round.
West Fork has nine returning starters on each side of the ball, including senior quarterback Eli Howerton who is extremely talented. The Tigers run the Wing T offense and have been a physical offensive team over the past few years. It remains to be seen how the Tigers’ offense will look under new coach Rodney Selph. Under the previous coaching staff, West Fork preferred to run a version of the flexbone with a big offensive line and were content to gain 3-4 yards on a rushing play, chewing up the game clock on each drive. Of course, that is a good philosophy unless you fall behind early and have to play catch-up. And that is what happened to West Fork last year at Eagles Stadium when both the Paris defense and offense quickly took over the game in route to a 54-0 shutout over the Tigers.
At publication time, the Eagles were in final preparation to host the Mansfield Tigers. Coaches often say that the most improvement a team will make all season is between week one and two. Paris will be counting on this as they look to overcome a devastating loss at Waldron in week zero. A Mansfield win, and perhaps more importantly, eliminating the turnovers that plagued the team in the first game, will be important in gaining momentum going into the contest at West Fork.
RNN Sports will have a post-game story on this game on Saturday on its online platform at residentnewsnetwork.com. Fans can access this story on our website free of charge.
Good luck to the Paris Eagles and best wishes for a successful road trip to West Fork. And Eagles fans, this weekend is an excellent opportunity to see the Eagles play in Northwest Arkansas and seeing the Razorbacks play on Saturday!
So have fun, and RNN Sports will see you in West Fork!
