Tigers preparing to face expectations

Green Forest football coach Greg Tibbitt says he feels as if the Tigers are “ahead of schedule” as they prepare to open the season on Aug. 30 with a road game at Hollister, Mo.

Tibbitt is entering his fifth season as Green Forest’s head coach and the Tigers seem primed to have their best season in several years.

“I feel like we’re ahead of schedule,” Tibbitt said Friday, Aug. 16. “Still just kind of the unknown. What are we going to do with expectations? What are we going to do when things are a little bit different?”

The Tigers will get a dress rehearsal on Friday, holding a Red and White scrimmage at Tiger Stadium. Green Forest’s junior high squad will play at 5:30 p.m., followed by the high school team at 7 p.m. The Tigers had been scheduled to play a scrimmage game at Siloam Springs but that was canceled because of a scheduling conflict.

Tibbitt said the Tigers have enough depth to field two squads and try to keep the scrimmage as close to game conditions as possible.

“With our numbers, we split our team up,” he said. “So we’ve got ones versus ones. We’ve got referees coming, so we’re going to do it as live of a game as we can.”

Tibbitt said he’ll be looking for consistency during the scrimmage.

“That’s the one thing in practice, on both sides of the ball,” he said. “When we go to our team session, we may have a few good offensive plays and then a terrible one. The same thing on defense. We may have a few great defensive plays and then a breakdown in coverage or something like that. So just consistency on both sides of the ball.”