Cardinals open up district play vs. unfamiliar foe

It’d be an understatement to say the Newton football team still hasn’t found its footing on offense.

The stats don’t lie. Other than passing yards, the Cardinals are basically at the bottom of Class 3A District 4 in all other offensive categories. Newton has 348 yards of total offense combined through two games, which is 49th out of 56 teams in 3A, with two teams not reporting stats. The Cardinals have scored 18 total points and gained 19 total first downs.

Those numbers are especially apparent when compared to last season, when Newton’s pass-happy offense regularly was posting at least 300 yards a game and was involved in a lot of shootouts.

But it’s been a different story so far this season, and player personnel is the biggest factor. The Cardinals have had several factors working against them through two games. Several would-be starters have been out with ineligibility issues, and will be for one more week. Several key starters were also hit by a flu bug that severely hampered their effectiveness against Knoxville. Those two things also created an issue of inexperience on the field, with many sophomores having to step into starting roles.

“It was a discombobulated mess,” Newton head coach Ed Ergenbright said about the offense last Friday. “At one point, we had seven sophomores on the field. That’s got to be an all-time record for Newton. We ran over 60 plays, which is amazing, but we couldn’t find any consistency.”