Change of plans

The Lexington Bulldogs will get their 2020 gridiron season started at 7 p.m. this Friday at home against the Allen Mustangs.

The ‘Dawgs were supposed to play the Little Axe Indians on Friday night.

But, those plans were scrapped last week, Lexington head football coach Keith Bolles said. The Little Axe school district announced last week that several teachers and students had tested positive for the Covid-19 virus.

Little Axe has cancelled all athletic activities until further notice and they have gone to virtual learning in the meantime.

That left Lexington scrambling to find a replacement for their opener.

“We are not playing Little Axe this Friday,” Bolles said Sunday evening. “Instead, we are playing Allen. Nobody knew this until we were able to set this game up late last Friday night. They are going to come to Lexington but we know nothing about them at this point.

“We’re supposed to get film on them from last year. I can’t tell you any players’ names but I can tell you that they’ve been in the I-formation and the spread in the past. Right now, we don’t know anything about how they play.”

Lexington (6-5 in 2019) will be playing an Allen team that went 3-7 last year under head coach Rob Green. The Mustangs are not a bad program at all. They went to the Class A playoffs in 2018 and lost to Hulbert, 50-19, in the first round.

Allen, in fact, made the State playoffs four straight years from 2015-2018. Allen (a town in Pontotoc County near Ada) has made the State playoffs 22 times in its history.

“It’s just going to be that kind of year where we are going to have to take it week-by-week,” Bolles said. “Last Friday, we had a scrimmage against Thomas here but we were focused on Marietta and Kingston. We were going to scrimmage each other – us and Marietta and Kingston.

“But, then we found out last week that Thomas had nobody to scrimmage against them yet. So, Kingston and Marietta scrimmaged and Thomas came to our place to scrimmage us. It worked out for the best.”