Wildcats travel to Prattville with playoff future in mind

The Enterprise Wildcats (5-1, 1-1) hit the road for the first time this week as they travel to play the Prattville Lions (4-2, 2-1) with third place in Class 7A, Region 2 on the line.

Enterprise is coming off a dominant 64-29 win over Fort Walton Beach (Fla.), while Prattville lost to Class 7A’s No. 2-ranked Hoover by a score of 35-16. In fact, both of Prattville’s losses this season came at the hands of Top 5 teams, as did Enterprise’s lone defeat.

“They’re a good team,” Enterprise coach Rick Darlington emphasized. “They’re the best team – besides Central – we’ve played so far.

“They’ve played some really good competition. I think they have a good defense and they both throw and run the ball well. It’s going to be another tough game for us, no doubt.”

The Enterprise coaches have stressed wanting to earn a higher seed and beating Prattville is paramount to reaching those goals. Last season, Enterprise held a 14-point lead against Prattville at halftime before ultimately falling 35-28.

“We had a chance to beat Prattville and let them back in it,” Darlington remembered of the 2020 loss. “We kind of imploded on both sides of the ball last year.”

Enterprise will also have to contend with a number of injuries plaguing both the Wildcat offense and defense.

“We’re beat up right now,” Darlington said. “I don’t ever remember us being this beat up as a team.

“There’s guys that will be out and guys we’d like to have back and hopefully some of them can come back this week. We just don’t even know who’s who yet. We don’t know who will be able to go but we definitely won’t be at full strength.”

On particular position that has been especially hit with the injury bug is the receivers group with the top two Wildcat receivers – Aiden White and Jadell Presley – sidelined with injuries last week. The Enterprise receivers were already thin with experience coming into the season but injuries have just added to that problem.

Despite the lack of experience and depth at receiver, the Wildcat running game has seemed to have blossomed even further this season despite the departure of current Illinois running back Josh McCray. Enterprise is averaging 378 yards rushing and nearly eight yards per carry on the ground this season. Underclassmen duo Amare Griffin and Mykel Johnson – who rushed for more than 200 yards and 20 yards per carry last week – lead a backfield that is refreshingly unselfish.

“If you look at our stats, Amare has way more carries than anyone else but the other night he only had nine (carries) for 18 (yards), it just wasn’t his night. It was MJ’s (Mykel Johnson) night. I bet there were probably nights where MJ was thinking, ‘Man, I’d like to get Amare’s carries,’ but he never said a word.

“He just smiles, works hard and goes out there and does what’s asked of him. Both of those guys are like that. I’m sure Sam Whitaker would like to get more touches but he blocks, does what he’s asked and when he gets his chance he makes plays. Zy’Air Boyd is another talented guy that rotates with Wyatt (Darlington) and never complains about it. Our offensive backfield has some talent, for sure, but I like the fact that they are just good dudes, too. They care about each other.”

Darlington said his quarterback is equally as unselfish.

“This is Quentin Hayes,” Darlington continued. “I go up to him on the sideline and I go, ‘Q, we really can’t run much spread without our receivers,’ and he says, ‘Coach, it’s okay. Single wing is working, so that’s what we need to do.’ That’s Q. He’s what you want in a teammate.”

Coming into the season Darlington moved longtime Enterprise running backs coach Justin Jones over to defense to fill a hole there leaving a hole in the offensive side of the ball that Darlington worried might cause the offense to suffer as he moved linebackers coach Brad Fortney to running backs coach. Fortney had never coached on the offensive side of the ball in his career.

“I think Brad Fortney has done a great job with (the running backs),” Darlington said. “Losing (Jones) to defense is good for the defense – he’s just a really good coach – but I really worried about how it would affect our chemistry in the backfield.

“Coach (Jones) is a great relationship coach, so to lose him was a big hit. The guys love him. So, to move Brad over there having never coached running backs at all, he’s done a fantastic job with those guys.”