Minden Finds Opponent And Chance At A Milestone Friday

Written by on November 13, 2020

Last week’s overtime win over the Bastrop Rams set the Minden Crimson Tide up for a big showdown with the 5-1 Huntington Raiders this Friday.

However, by Wednesday, all that changed.

While recording an interview for Shreveport Television station KTBS as their “Game of the Week,” Coach Spencer Heard saw that he had a phone call from Huntington Coach Stephen Dennis. After the interview, Heard called Dennis, who informed him that they would not be able to play due to Covid cases and contact tracing. “I began immediately calling a few schools, couldn’t really find anything,” said Heard. “Really, I thought we weren’t going to have a game this week.” According to Heard, by Wednesday the coaching staff and players had resigned to not playing a game this Friday. “Wednesday, we went ahead and told the players that we were probably not going to play this week, that I had looked around and couldn’t find anything within a reasonable distance and good matchup,”

But, later in the day things changed. “After practice, we were sitting in the coaches office and Coach Davis was looking at his phone and said, ‘Well, Franklin Parish just cancelled their last two games.’ Franklin Parish is our opponent next week, which isn’t good.” Heard said. After seeing that Franklin Parish’s game this week was against Cedar Creek in Ruston, Coach Heard made a call to their coach and after clearing with the LHSAA, the game was set and Minden had a week 7 opponent.

Minden and Cedar Creek have never played in football and according to Coach Heard, it was a whirlwind practice on Thursday to prepare for the Cougars and their option offense. Heard said that they got film on Thursday, setting up a very tight schedule. “We had to today to break it (the film) down, which usually is done over a weekend, 8-10 hours.” And then the fun began. “Then we had to go out and try to teach the guys how to defend the triple option.” Heard laughingly noted.

With a win tonight, the Minden Crimson Tide will achieve a program milestone. A Tide win tonight will give the program 500 regular season wins. While record keeping among high school football isn’t the greatest, as of 2016, Haynesville held the record in the state for most wins at 776. Minden’s combined record with playoff wins included is 527. Game time for Minden/Cedar Creek is 7pm. Tickets are $10 at the gate. The game will be aired on KASO 1240 AM and KBEF 104.5 FM, and also online at www.kbef.com.

** NERD NOTES **

  • As noted in the article, a win tonight will give the Crimson Tide regular season win 500.
  • Also with the win, Coach Heard will move to 52 wins all time. Now in 3rd place, Heard is 8 wins behind 2nd place Steve Brasher and 12 wins behind all time leader, Elton Kelley,
  • If the Tide is unable to secure a week 8 opponent to fill the Franklin Parish spot and wins tonight against Cedar Creek, Minden will finish with 1 loss for the first time since 2016, when they lost in the quarterfinal round against Warren Easton.
  • Also if unable to play next week, it will be the fewest games in season for the Crimson Tide since 1945, when the Tide played a 6 game season that was shortened due to World War II. No games were played between 1943-44. The fewest games in a season played by Minden is 2 in 1918.

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