Going Golden: TC Coach Talks Atmosphere For Fossil Ridge Matchup

With the team currently 4-0 in their season, Timber Creek Falcon Football faces off with Fossil Ridge on Friday, Sept. 29. at 7:30 p.m. in the Gold Out game. With the game being hosted in order to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital through an organization competition, Coach Kevin Golden has approached the game as a fun, “playoff” type atmosphere for the athletes, while also hoping that the game will serve as a checkpoint of the team’s progress and effort.

“The kids are working really hard doing their job,” said Golden. “Their expectations are very high, which has been a slow progression from when we started the school until now and hopefully there will be even higher expectations as we go through this season. I’ve approached this game as fun. The whole school is going to be excited…[and] it’s going to be an awesome atmosphere.”

Having spent the first four games adjusting the players’ positions and moving athletes around to fit their strongest positions, the team looks to have numerous key linebackers as well as a solid defensive line. With a defensive line larger than previous years, the team has continuously shown their abilities to put pressure on the other teams and their offensive lines, proving hard to move.

“We’ve never had a defensive line this big,” said Golden. “They’ve locked into their job and they’re not letting [anything] clutter their minds [while] they’re out there on the field…they’re really focused on doing their job. These guys know that they may not be in on every single tackle so they have to do their job first and then pursue the ball. We’ve kept the ‘big play’ from hurting us, and we’ve done a good job of keeping those extra yards…we gave up one early against Denton, and after that happened, they became really focused on what we taught them through the week.”

Using the same training plan as they have for the previous two years, the coaches have pushed these student-athletes to further their strengths and potential, only tweaking the program in minor ways. Fixing the offense based on a weekly basis, the coaches base the offense’s improvements based off of the previous week’s game, keeping their success going through being clean and penalty free, looking for the team to execute during the next week.

“The big thing that I stress with [the players] here is that…[they] earn their playing time in practice,” Golden said. “If [they] don’t get it done here in practice, [then they’re] not going to get it done in the game. Whoever is the best during the week, they’re going to be the ones to play. I’ve divided the season into three parts: non-district, district, and playoffs, and we’re starting our second [part] of the season right now. [We’re] 1-0 now; [we] don’t worry about being 4-0, [we] worry about being 1-0.”