The Pampa Harvesters (1-6, 0-2) come back home to Zach Thomas Stadium at Harvester Field for Senior Night against the Canyon Eagles (4-2, 0-2). Senior night festivities are set for around 6:15 p.m. with kickoff at 7 p.m. The band Senior Night will be at halftime. Pampa is looking to get in the win column for district play as they fight each game to stay in the playoff picture. Canyon has opened up district play with two losses as well to the West Plains Wolves (39-10) and Dumas Demons (34-29). As I do each week, I sat down with Head Coach Floyd White to discuss last week’s game as well as preview this week.
Offense v. West Plains
Pampa unfortunately had two offensive lineman and star running back Max Neff miss the West Plains game due to injuries. The big highlight was on the second drive of the game when Senior Quarterback Jarren Hill found Senior Wide Receiver Jose Alonzo for a 56-yard pass play. Hill would later punch in the games’ only score for the Harvesters.
“Anytime you are missing your top playmaker and two starting lineman that makes a huge difference, especially at the high school level. It is not like you have a bunch of kids. You have a lot of guys out there and they go out there and work their tails off but there is a reason your starters are your starters sometimes. There is a reason your backups are your backups. Anytime you are losing a starter it makes a huge difference for what your offense is going to look like moving forward,” White said. “The great thing about our guys is they got out there and competed. They fought their tails off. These are guys who were defensive lineman the week before. They get reps and do all those things but if it is what you do on a week in, week out basis, it definitely makes a huge difference for you. I am proud of the fight our guys went out there and showed. Even though the game got out of hand, the guys fought and competed from play one to play none.”
Defense v. West Plains
As we discussed last week, West Plains is a loaded gun on offense with many guys already committed to Division One college football programs. Pampa was able to hold the Wolves under 400 yards despite the 55-7 loss.
“Whenever you get in those types of games your job is to hold them from scoring. We weren’t able to hold them. Our kids went into it prepared. The great thing about being able to watch the game after the fact is you see it and realize some things weren’t nearly as good as you think but also not nearly as bad as you think when you see it on film,” White said. “When you look, all the things they scored on can be really cleaned up in a hurry. We had some kids misfit a few things which caused long runs. In the passing game, we had a kid who started for us at the beginning of the year, got hurt, and is just now kind of coming back from it. They threw a post early in the second quarter, we have two guys on the post and the guy that is sitting at the post, he took a poor angle on the ball. It’s things like that as you keep growing with these guys and keep teaching them you want to see them start to fix those things. All of it is stuff that is very fixable.”
Final thoughts on West Plains
“I was proud of our guys. Proud of their fight. We had some kids go down and get hurt. You watch them pop back up and go back over and get a little bit of treatment on themselves and go right back in. That’s our guys. They have a never say die attitude. Sometimes, we don’t always get the result we want. The kids are really starting to have that ‘it’ factor to them that is going to continue to pay dividends for them as we continue to push into the end of the season.”
Seniors
Pampa will honor 17 seniors playing one of their final high school football games ever. They will also recognize the cheerleaders, trainers, and filmers who have helped support this team over the last four years.
“Whenever I first got here (a year and a half ago) all those kids (seniors) were all sophomores. They’ve taken to everything we have asked them to. They wanted to be the group. They still have the opportunity to be that group that leads everyone into the playoffs. They go out there everyday and have a great work ethic and tremendous leadership in that group,” White said. “That’s what I find the most appealing about the group. I was telling this group the other day. Up to this point in my coaching career, this has been the most fun group I have had to coach. I have been around a lot of kids that when things get tough they fold up their tent and go back to their house. Not these guys. They always come out there everyday and come in with big smiles on their faces and ready and willing to work. It’s always refreshing to be able to work with a group of young men like this. I can’t say enough good things about these guys because I don’t have enough time on the radio show to be able to do that. I wish more and more kids would take from these guys and learn what it is to be a great teammate because these guys are great teammates across the board.”
Canyon offense
“They are a little 2x2 or 3x1. They also like to get in 12 personnel and run sets with two tight ends or run a set with a tight end and a fullback. They have a little bit of everything in their offense. They have a little bit of two back stuff under center, in the gun, and one back under center and in the gun. They are kind of similar to West Plains but not really. They have a lot of other wrinkles to what it is they do. They don’t run a lot of stuff but the stuff they do run they run it well. It will take everything we have to continue to make sure we are on point and our eyes are right,” White said. “Early in the season they ran a lot of two quarterback stuff. They flip flopped basically most of the year. It really has been the last couple of games they have settled on a quarterback #12 (Brox Hacker). I think that has helped them out just a little bit. They have a big receiver #15 (Bayler Schilling). He gets out there and they try to get the ball to him all over the place. You have to make sure you know where he is. They have another receiver #6 (Cason Littau). He does great things out there. They have a plethora of backs. They have a tight end #44 (Isaiah Amaya). He is a heckuva player. They also rotate in another one #8 (Levi Turner). All those guys rotate in and play tight end and sometimes they even bring a third tight end. One thing they do have is they have a lot of tight ends running around Canyon, Texas. Up front, they do a great job. They are not really tall but they have some bigger body kids and they do a good job of pushing people around. We are going to have our work cut out for us.”
Canyon defense
“It starts with what they do up front. They have a big defensive lineman #64 (Da’Keydrion Ford). He’s not a real tall guy but he plugs up a lot of space and he is kind of hard to move. Some of those same kids from offense play on the defensive side as well like #9 (Kaz Abernethy) comes in and plays linebacker for them. #8 (Turner) plays for them. They have a couple of different guys who move in and out and play all the skill spots. Defensively, they look a lot like us. They are an odd front. They will not have a lot of adjustment to what they do. They are going to pack guys down into the box because of what we do. Ultimately, we are going to have to throw some balls over their head and back them up and take advantage of some of the things they give us,” White said. “We are going to have to put bodies on bodies and get those guys moved. They don’t change a lot of what they do on defense. We have to get bodies in there and move people the way we need to. The good thing is we are starting to get some guys back healthy and that is really going to help us out.”
Keys to the game on defense
Get off the field on third down: “The other night we weren’t able to get off the field on third down,” White said.”
Get pressure on the QB: “We have to be able to get pressure on the QB and get him moving around and uneasy. If we can get him uneasy, I think it is going to be good for the Harvesters,” White said.
Tackle better. “We have had times where we have guys dead to right in the hole and we duck our head or we kind of sometimes we make business decisions where it comes down to me and this person and I have to make that tackle but I will kind of move off to the side so it doesn’t hurt nearly as bad,” White said. “Those are the things we have to get over and really make sure we push through on the defensive side of the ball.”
Keys to the game on offense
Get people moved: “We have to know who is where and make sure we get bodies on bodies. When we are able to do that, we are normally pretty dang good,” White said.
Win the turnover battle. Pampa has to keep themselves from turning the ball over on offense but also get some turnovers on defense.
Convert third down: “That is where we get ourselves in some problems on both offense and defense. We have to make sure we are converting on third down,” White said.
Final thoughts on Canyon
“It’s going to be an exciting game. All of our district games are exciting because every one of them can turn on the flip of a coin. We have to just get out there and get after those guys and give them the best we got. When we do that, we are as good as anyone in the district. There is nobody that is that much better than us but there is also nobody that is that much worse than us. We have to make sure we get out there and are ready to go.”
Clayton Ward
I am also highlighting one player each week to end the interview. This week is Clayton Ward #18 and a Senior Linebacker/Tight End for the Harvester Football team. He has 26 tackles on the season so far. Here is what Head Coach/Linebacker Coach Floyd White had to say about Boston:
“Clayton is like a swiss army knife for us. That is the best way I can describe him because he plays tight end and linebacker for us but at times we have to move him up front to play on the defensive line. No matter where he goes, he is a very cerebral player. Because he is so cerebral, that is going to help him when he goes off and plays college ball somewhere. He is going to have that ability to do that. It’s fun everyday when we go into the linebacker room and watch film and start talking. He’s one of those guys I can be like ‘hey what do you see here, what do you think about this?’ You can see the wheels turning and he is always able to answer those questions because he’s watched film. He’s shot me a message or two over the course of the year saying ‘hey coach, have you seen this from this guy.’ Because he really sits down and watches film. He says ‘whenever this guy’s hands down over here he does this and when his hand is over here he does this..’ He is very cerebral and he works hard. He is really, really working to get better at his craft. I think the sky is the limit for Clayton,” White said.
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 Ethan Hunt 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. Live stats can be found here: https://www.turbostatslive.com/football/webcast/08002511465744. Season stats can be found on the team page: https://www.turbostats.team/site/2/team/football/pampahighschool/pampa%20good%20file%202025. Senior Night festivities will be shown around 6:15 p.m. 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 Zac Green interviewing him will play early this week around 6 p.m. before Senior Night gets underway! The Band Senior Night will also be shown at halftime.
