Pine Bluff High School has endured its share of growing pains through three playing weeks of the football season.
Having to identify key players following the graduation of many college signees, the Zebras have only scored one touchdown thus far in 2023, and that was in a 35-6 loss to Dallas Kimball three weeks ago.
“What I think is our main reason we’re not scoring is that we’ve got to get back to the basics, the basic scheme,” third-year Zebras Coach Micheal Williams said, adding some of the creative schemes from 2023 and before were designed for now-University of Missouri freshmen Courtney Crutchfield and Austyn Dendy, among others. “We just ripped off all the extra stuff and get back to the very basics. As an offensive staff, we were going off what we went through the last two years.”
Pine Bluff (0-3) has given the keys to the offense to senior Davonte Wallace and sophomore Antwone Miller, and Williams remains committed to the two as they build experience.
“I typically always play two quarterbacks, even with (2023 graduate) Will Howell, who was a great quarterback, but we played Landon (Holcomb, a 2024 grad now at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff) a lot,” Williams said.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Holcomb’s turn as QB1 paid off during the 2023 season, as Pine Bluff won the 5A-Central Conference and marched to the 5A state semifinals.
The Zebras, like their Jefferson County neighbors, took last week off to gear up for the retooled 5A-Central Conference. They will begin conference play Friday night at Jacksonville (1-2), with kickoff at 7 p.m.
Jacksonville is one of two teams new to the 5A-Central for the 2024-26 conference alignments in Arkansas. Jacksonville and Searcy, the 2019 6A state champion, replaced Mills University Studies (now Conference 4A-2), Morrilton and Vilonia (both now of the 5A-West).
Pine Bluff’s and Jacksonville’s starts to the season sharply contrast. Pine Bluff lost to out-of-state championship contenders Oklahoma City Millwood (14-0) in Week 0 in DeSoto, Texas, and Kimball at home before suffering a 27-0 loss to Camden Fairview almost two weeks ago at UAPB.
Despite the decisive losses, Williams has been high on his defense.
“Defensively, we’ve got a really good defense,” he said. “I made sure we scheduled the first three games pretty hard. They do that because they schedule teams better than them.”
The philosophy for that, Williams said, comes from a perennial power from his coaching days in north Texas, South Oak Cliff. The Dallas team won state titles in two of the past three seasons, finishing second in 5A Division II last year to Port Neches-Groves in a rematch of the 2022 final.
“I want to make sure we know where we are instead of get down late in the season and make the playoffs or not even make the playoffs,” said Williams, who came up just short of the making the Arkansas 5A playoffs with the Zebras in 2022. “I want to know what our flaws are now. We’ve been playing well defensively, but I see the flaws. The defense gave up some points, and the offense gave up some points.”
All of Jacksonville’s opponents in nonconference play have been against 4A teams. The Titans lost 42-20 to Malvern, edged Lonoke 8-7 and were torched 35-7 by DeWitt.
Formerly the Red Devils, the Titans have not won more than four games since 2014 and ended an 18-game slide last year with back-to-back victories over Greene County Tech and Sylvan Hills while in the 6A-East Conference. Williams didn’t sound concerned that he might not learn enough about his team against an opponent that has also struggled.
“I think it will be a good game,” Williams said. “I know Jacksonville has been down the last few years. … I still want to know, can we execute?”