The Pampa Harvester football season for 2025 will begin Friday night at Zach Thomas Stadium right here in Pampa. Kickoff is set for 7 PM against the Iowa Park Hawks. Pampa opened the season with a win in the first game last season, 42-28 against this same Iowa Park squad on the road. They will look to do it again in this season. Every team has got a couple of scrimmages under their belts but the real action starts tomorrow.
I want to first say thanks to John Lee as he already did a season preview article and will be doing the game recap articles. This helps me to focus on my duties as the football team statistician and film coach.
What can we expect from the Iowa Park offense?:
“Offensively, there will be a lot of 2 by 2 and 3 by 1. They have a lot of spread concepts. They run the power, they run the counter, and they run the outside zone. They can get after it. They are pretty tough and physical,” head coach Floyd White said. “They have a good quarterback, running back, and three good receivers. They also have a tight end they bring in which makes it even tougher. They are tough.”
On the defensive side of the ball for the Hawks:
“Defensively, they will be tough and fly around the ball. They will get after it up front and try to make our lives a living heck as we try to get them moved out of the way,” White said. “Once we get them up front and moved out of the way, then they will be running around trying to get to everybody. They do a really good job. I think coach (Bryan) Wood has done a good job of getting them out there and playing hard right now.”
Players to watch for:
White mentioned how normally he would have numbers to watch for on these players but being the first game he is unable to do so.
“When you watch a scrimmage film you don’t know who is who. There could be two No. 1s and two No. 11s on the field at the same time with the practice jerseys on. You have all these different numbers. But, those guys are going to be solid.”
What are the keys to the game for the Harvesters?
Don’t turn over the ball: “I know it’s so cliche but that was such an integral part of the things that gave us issues last year is we would turn the ball over,” White said.
Limit the number of big plays on defense: “We have to limit the number of big plays they have. If we can limit the number of big plays they have to 2 or 3 we are going to be just fine,” White said. “We have to make them consistently try to grind it out. Most high school kids if you try to make them do that, eventually they will make a mistake. We have to continually make them run plays or get stops,” White said.
Get stops on 3rd down: “We gotta get off the field on 3rd down. That was one of our achilles heels last year. We would get people in 3rd and long (7 or 8) and they would gain 9. Or we would get them in 3rd and 12 and they would gain 13. It happened to us all year last year. We gotta do a good job of getting pressure on the quarterback when it’s a pass down. When we are there to make the play, we have to make the plays. Those are our big keys to the game,” White said.
When asked about goals for the season and in particular this game, White mentioned how he doesn’t really love to set goals. He just wants to see this squad get better week in and week out.
“Our goal for this game and all season is to continually get better. As long as we can sit there and watch ourselves getting better we know what we are doing. I am really looking forward to getting out there and getting our people out there on Friday night,” White said. “One thing I can tell you about our crowd and our people is man, they are golden. Our community is golden. They get out there and they are ruckus. It is fun to get out there and play in front of our home crowd. I am so excited to get them out there and let’s let the chips fall where they may.”
The game will be streamed on Harvester Sports Network. You can find HSN on Youtube: www.youtube.com/@HarvesterSportsNetwork/. You can also follow them on Facebook: www.facebook.com/HarvesterSportsNetwork. Lastly, there is a Twitter/X page: www.x.com/PampaHSN. Kevin Hunt and Hugh Piatt will be calling the game. The game will also be broadcast locally on 101.3 Legends Classic Country. That station will be piped through the YouTube feed. If everything works out okay, the home games will be streamed through the video scoreboard meaning there could be replays on the broadcast!
The pre-game show will begin on YouTube and 101.3 at 6:45 p.m. and kickoff is set for 7 p.m. A weekly radio show with Coach White called “Whiteboard Wisdom” with yours truly interviewing him will play at 6:20 p.m. each gameday before Kevin Hunt gets on with his pregame show!
