Spring football practice wraps up in Comanche

Comanche football coach Gary Robinson finds himself in a different position than last year even though he basically has the same players from the 2023 team.

“Everybody’s back except for the five seniors we ended the year with last year,” Robinson said. “Those freshman are now sophomores that played a lot last year. What I’ve seen is the maturity levels are so much better. The focus and their drive and their passion, you can just tell they are more locked in than they were last year.”

And even though they are still young, the experience and the lumps gained from last year will be beneficial for the 2024 squad.

“The past six months they have grown and grown a lot,” Robertson said. “Relatively speaking, we are still young, but the maturity level is what I’m most impressed with. They are focused in practice and as coaches we have turned the intensity level up a notch because their expectations are going up a little more.”

Robertson thinks the off-season leading up to the spring could have been a little better, but overall he is pleased with how things went.

“I think we could have been better in that I think we could have gotten some more lifting in, but I didn’t have the kids all the time because they go to their second sport,” Robertson said. “It’s gonna to be much better next offseason because I’ve got the schedule worked out to where I have all of my football players during first period weightlifting class. So, all year long, we’re going to be lifting every day no matter what season it is, so that will be a huge advantage for us this season. And then when we do get to the offseason, it will be a real offseason for me.”

There was some success in the offseason with powerlifting.

“If you want to talk about powerlifting being a part of the football season, we had really, really good numbers. We had big numbers in junior high and we have more kids getting after it in the weight room than we’ve had in the past.”

The purpose of spring practice this year was just to get better. They participated in a football camp on May 20 in Wayne.

“We’re not really looking at any other teams,” Robinson said. “We’re just looking to get better.”

New districts released

The OSSAA recently released its new football classifications and district realignments and there will be some definite differences than the past couple of years for the Indians.

Comanche will be playing in District 2 in the newly-formed Class 2A-II division. Class 2A has been divided into two divisions with Comanche playing in the smaller school division of the class.

District 2 will consist of: Beggs, Coalgate, Comanche, Community Christian, Davis, Dibble, Holdenville and Tishomingo.

Community Christian is the only team left over from Comanche’s previous district, but Coalgate, Davis and Tishomingo were in the same conference as Comanche just a few years ago.

Of those teams, only Davis, Dibble and Holdenville were playoff teams with Dibble playing in Class A in 2023.

Davis went 9-3 and advanced to the second round, Holdenville went 7-4 and lost in the first round and Dibble went 10-3 and advanced to the third round.

For non-playoff qualifying teams, Beggs went 4-6, Coalgate with 2-8, Comanche went 2-8, Community Christian went 3-7 and Tishomingo went 4-6.