Wynne hosts Marion in 2016 opener

Wynne hosts Marion in 2016 opener

Sports Editor

To Jed Davis, playing the Wynne Yellowjackets in the non-conference portion of his schedule is everything that’s right about high school football in Arkansas. “When you think of high school football in America, you just think of Wynne, Arkansas,” says Davis, in his third year as head coach of the Marion Patriots. “You know, you look around and the stores are painted up with Wynne Yellowjacket stuff. Their town shuts down on a Friday night. You know that it’s gonna be a fantastic atmosphere and you’re going to play a good opponent that’s well-coached.”

Marion and Wynne were conference rivals beginning in the 1980s until 2006, and the schools have maintained their football rivalry by playing each year since that one in week 1.

In fact, one of the biggest wins in the history of Marion football came in week 9 of the 2005 football season. In that game, the Patriots topped the Yellowjackets 13-10 in overtime for their first win against Wynne ever.

Marion was also victorious against Wynne last season, taking down a 26-23 thriller at Patriot Stadium, but Davis now wants to take his team’s show on the road.

“We feel like those are teams that we can compete with and beat, like we did last year, but hey, lets go to their place and show them that we can win in a football town like Wynne,” Davis says.

That may prove to be the easier said than done, however. The road team in this series has lost every year since 2008, when Marion came home with a 15-13 win. Wynne hasn’t won in Marion since 2003.

One of the questions of summer for Marion has regarded their starting quarterback in 2016 as Davis has looked at juniors Peyton Walker and Jacob Green.

That question is still there, but Davis said that he will start Green on Friday night, and the rotation from there will be up in the air.

“It’s a hard thing to call because I have to balance the needs of the team against the needs of the quarterbacks,” says the coach. “You never want a quarterback to play with the idea that ‘Hey, if I make one mistake, the other guy is coming in,’ I’ve never liked that much. I think it slows you down and you just don’t play as well. So I’m gonna let them work through some mistakes, but not like three quarters of bad football.”

Complicating matters even further is Walker’s status as a starting linebacker for Marion, where his athleticism makes him an asset. Walker was a starter on the defensive line last fall.

“It’s hard to play two ways already at the 6A level. It’s really hard to play it when you’re a linebacker and a quarterback where you’re playing some really physical football on defense, and you’re also playing quarterback where we want you to run the offense and run the ball and do all of the things that we need you to do.”

Walker won’t be the only two-way player that may decide the game on Friday night, however. Davis explained that Wynne’s better linemen start on that team’s offensive and defensive lines. “I’m anxious to see how that plays out,” Davis says. “They have several guys who play both ways. Now, I don’t know if they’ll play every snap both ways, but when you run their style of offense as a lineman, then turn around and play D-line and have to chase Tom Young, fast quarterbacks, that’d be tough to do.”

Last season, Wynne head coach Chris Hill installed the Flexbone offense and the Yellowjackets responded by going 7-5 with a playoff win against Camden Fairview.

Kickoff in Wynne is scheduled for 7 p.m.

By Chuck Livingston