Football season comes to an end

(Editor’s note: This article has been updated with additional information quotes from the newspaper version.)

Comanche’s football season came to a close with a 40-7 road loss to Holdenville last Thursday night.

The loss gave the Indians a 2-8 overall and 1-6 district record.

Before the season started, head coach Gary Robinson had stated that his team would need to stay healthy in order to be competitve week in and week out.

Unfortunately for the Indians, the injury bug struck early and often and combined with a tough district schedule gave the Indians a steep hill to climb.

Holdenville came into the game undefeated and one of the top-ranked teams in Class 2A-II.

“They were a really good football team with a tremendous amount of speed,” Robinson said. “If you remember that number 10 from Coalgate being really fast,  Holdenville had three of them in the backfield and they were just way faster than anything I had on defense.”

While the team didn’t make the playoffs, Robinson still saw some good things.

“Our kids finished up the season by playing hard like they did all year,” Robinson said. “I think our kids started playing harder and harder as the year went on even though we weren’t winning games. Even going into those games with three, four, five or six starters out, they never quit.”

Robinson said one accomplishment he is proud of is the new attitude on the team.

“In my first year, we had so many personal fouls and got a reputation that reflected on the team and the school and I felt like we cleaned that up. I didn’t want the team, school or community to be represented like that.” 

Even though the season may not have ended the way he wanted, he is proud of the leadership of the 13 seniors on the team.

“I felt like they really grew up,” Robinson said. “Going from being juniors last year and not having many seniors last year, I felt like that helped them mature and grow up for this year. Kids like Evan Dodd and Brylan Sweat, I was so pleased with their maturity level and leadership. Both of those guys are MVPs for me. They never gave up. Their leadership was amazing. And, Colby Shannon, doing what he did for us, a lot of times, having to do it on his own. His leadership was outstanding.”

And it was the maturity of all the seniors that helped move the program forward even though it may not have shown on the scoreboard.

“I am most pleased with how they matured over the past two years and the great leaders they became,” Robinson said. “Ultimately, my goal as head coach has always been, I want my kids to leave my program better men than who they would have been if they did not go through my program. I think we accomplished that with a lot of these kids.”

The team is already getting back to work in the weight room and will continue doing that until spring practice rolls around.

“We’ll be doing a lot of strength training and conditioning,” Robinson said.