Roos open district at Martin

The Warriors come into district with a 3-0 record, with close wins against Mansfield, Marcus and a 17-point win against Crowley.

Martin is led offensively by its speedy four-star running back Javian Jones-Priest. The Virginia Tech commit has rushed for 399 yards and eight touchdowns this season. There are several runs on his tape where he is not touched thanks to both good blocking and his speed that will test teams who are not used to playing against a player with that type of pace.

“We are going to try and keep everything in front of us and simple,” Weatherford coach Marshall Williams said.

The Warriors are far from one-dimensional. Quarterback Chase Devoll has thrown for 571 yards this season, hooking up with Malik Mason (150 yards) and Chancellor Tealer (196 yards) on big plays.

The offense works out of a lot of different formations and shifts, so the main thing for the Roos defense, as has been the case since the beginning of season, is to keep things simple and make sure everyone is lined up in the right place, according to Williams.

Defensively, Martin works out of 4-2 or 4-1 front. The defensive line for the Warriors received praise from Williams. Despite blitzing only 15% of the time, the team has racked up 10 sacks and 58 hurries in its three games. In the secondary, cornerback Kevin Grant is a three-star recruit to look out for.

Williams expects the Martin defense to sit back in zone, which could leave the short passing game open if the offense is patient and stays on schedule. That means the rushing attack of both running back D.J Quimby (308 yards) and quarterback Braelyn Jones (178 yards) needs to keep producing on the ground with the help of the offensive line.

The passing game has gotten better every week, with Jones (492 yards passing) getting huge plays from playmaker Jakob Hemphill (279 total receiving yards) last week that helped turn the momentum of that game around.

Williams expects at some point for Martin to start playing man-to-man in the secondary, which would make the game simple if his players can execute and exploit that coverage.

Weatherford has gotten off to a slow start in its first three games, falling behind in the first half in two. Every game the Roos have come out in the third quarter having made adjustments and played overall better than when they started.

Against a team like the Warriors, which is expected to challenge in the second tier of the district standings after Aledo, Weatherford does not have that kind of time to wake up. Martin is also hungry after just missing the playoffs last year, but returns enough of its players to expect to make that jump.

Williams said he thought his team’s first two days of practice were great, but knew on Tuesday his team needed a great third day to feel as good as it needs to heading into another road game.

“We are just going to keep getting better at what we do,” Williams said. “We want to execute at a high level, not be too concerned about them and concentrate on what we do well. I think our kids are doing a decent job of handling success. They know Martin is going to be a pretty good team.”