Coach sees hope for season

The Tucumcari High School football team played a scrimmage Thursday at Clovis against the Wildcats' junior varsity, and what coach Wayne Ferguson saw gave him encouragement for the upcoming season.

"I was pleasantly surprised. I didn't know what to expect," Ferguson said, noting the Clovis JV is roughly equivalent to a team in Tucumcari's Class 3A division. "It was good to go against somebody, and we saw some good things. We saw some other things we need to work on and hopefully get better at."

Ferguson, in his 10th season of guiding the Rattlers, said the team's new quarterback, senior Andrew Henderson-Clark, had a 30-yard gain on an option play and that senior running back Charlies Prieto had a good game.

On the bad side, Tucumcari's defense gave up two big running plays during the 30-play scrimmage.

Ferguson acknowledged he kept his game plan as vanilla as possible because Clayton, which the Rattlers host in their season-opener at 7 p.m. Friday, also was at the scrimmage.

Henderson-Clark has shown strength and skills with basketball and track, but Ferguson pointed out he may have a learning curve as quarterback because he hadn't played football since seventh grade.

Tucumcari returns 10 players with varsity experience from last season's 0-4 campaign. The Rattlers have just 25 players on the roster, which prevents any junior varsity games this season.

The lack of skill players bedeviled the Rattlers last season. That has been alleviated, but only somewhat.

"Skill-wise, we may have more depth, but some of those are just freshmen coming in," Ferguson said. "And I don't have as many lineman this year. I had 14, 15 linemen last season and have only nine, 10 this year."

Outside of Henderson-Clark and Prieto, Ferguson said Tucumcari's offense will be "a mix and match until we figure out what we're going to do."

Ferguson also expressed optimism about senior Reyes Garcia, who will play offensive lineman and linebacker, and senior Khobie Salvador, who hasn't played football since he was a freshman but showed strength and skills earlier this year in track and field.

Ferguson said Clayton has a lot of unknowns because the district shelved football during the COVID-shortened season. The Yellowjackets had only 18 players at the Clovis scrimmage Thursday.

In Tucumcari's district this season are Dexter, Hope Christian and New Mexico Military Institute.

Tucumcari also has home games against Loving (Sept. 3), Raton (Sept. 10), Dexter (Oct. 22) and NMMI (Oct. 29), all with kickoff times of 7 p.m. at Rattler Stadium. The Raton game will be the Homecoming matchup.

Road games for the Rattlers are 2 p.m. Aug. 28 at Albuquerque Academy, 7 p.m. Sept. 17 at Santa Rosa, 7 p.m. Sept. 24 at Robertson, 7 p.m. Oct. 1 at Texico and 5 p.m. Oct. 16 at Hope Christian. Tucumcari's bye week will be Oct. 8.

Logan

The Logan eight-man football squad notched a win this season without setting foot on the gridiron.

The Longhorns were scheduled to play at Pine Hill during their season opener Saturday. However, not enough Pine Hill players had completed their physicals on time. Consequently, Logan earned a forfeit victory.

Instead, Logan's season-opener will be at 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 27, when it hosts Dulce.

Logan coach Dwayne Roberts, in his third season, was out of town last week due to a family emergency, and when he would return remained uncertain. Assistant coach Kyle Griffiths talked about the upcoming season in Roberts' place.

Griffiths said he has about 12 high-schoolers - including seven with varsity experience from last season's 1-3 team - practicing, and he anticipated using four to five eighth-graders to help fill out the roster. The Longhorns have only one senior.

"We graduated eight seniors last year," he said. "We've got a pretty young group, but they're buying into what we're doing and working hard.

"Honestly, I think our biggest weakness will be lack of depth. We're just not going to have a lot of subs on the bench. If everyone stays healthy, I think we're going to be all right. But that's how it goes in football."

Griffiths said his team probably will be strong defensively, led by two-time all-state linebacker Park Strong. He said the Longhorns also are stout in the offensive line.

"But we're filling in a lot of new skill guys – new quarterback, new running back, new receiver," he said.

Griffiths anticipated Fort Sumner, Melrose and Tatum would be among the contenders in rugged District 2.

"Our district is a gauntlet, I'll tell you that," he said.