By Dylan Wallace | The Tribune
Tyson Moore was at a football game Friday night, but it wasn’t the one he wanted to be at.
After Seymour contracted COVID-19 last week, the Owls were forced to cancel their game at Floyd Central.
Instead, Moore and his assistants drove up to Bedford to watch Bedford North Lawrence take on New Albany — two teams Seymour will be playing later this season with Bedford coming to town on Friday.
“It’s definitely not something you ever want to do again,” Moore said. “Friday was absolutely miserable having to go watch another team play.”
There were concerns the Owls wouldn’t get everybody back this week for practice, but by Monday morning, Moore was informed everyone was back and good to go.
Seymour had the whole team back in practice by Tuesday of this week.
“Thankfully we’ve gotten everybody back that we’ve previously had out,” Moore said. “It was nice to have both the offensive and defensive lines to go at each other.”
The silver lining Moore tried to find in not playing last week was it gave some of the starters the chance to rest and the practices were more focused on the younger guys and doing more technique work.
Perhaps the biggest thing Seymour missed out on last week was momentum. The Owls were fresh off a historic 28-24 win over Columbus East, snapping the Olympians 96-game win streak in the HHC.
However, Moore still thinks his team is ready to go.
“We still believe we have the momentum,” he said.
Seymour (1-2, 1-1 HHC) has Bedford team coming in on Friday who is 1-3 overall and also 1-1 in the HHC.
The Stars have suffered losses to Martinsville (45-14), Bloomington North (55-34) and New Albany (27-16). Their lone win came in Week 3 against Jeffersonville, 48-13. Seymour lost to Jeff in Week 2 47-36.
Upon watching Bedford in person last Friday, Moore saw some major changes from last year’s team.
“They do a lot of good things,” he said. “I noticed that they’re a lot more disciplined than they have been in the past. You can tell they really believe in their philosophy. Their linebackers, I think that aside from Columbus East, they have the best linebacking group in the conference.
“Our message to our guys this week is we have to play disciplined football as well. The team that’s more disciplined Friday night will be the team that wins the game.”
A big turning point for Seymour in its three games this season have been special teams.
In the Owls’ first game, Jack Pennington returned the opening kickoff to get Seymour off to a good start. Against Jeff, Seymour allowed a kick return that wound up costing them in the end. And against East, Dylan Fields returned a kickoff after an East touchdown to make it a three-point game and give momentum right back to Seymour.
“It’s vitally important,” Moore said. “You gotta win the hidden yardage, and hidden yardage is special teams.”
Moore admits the Owls were poor at special teams last season, and he took offense to that. They’ve spent a lot of time on it this season to improve.
“This year’s special teams play has been night and day different,” Moore said. “To see how we’ve performed in three games now, it’s very pleasing. I’m just glad that our kids have put in the effort because they’ve seen how important special teams can be.”
Seymour will look to be solid and disciplined in all three phases of the game on Friday night in hopes of evening up its overall record and going above .500 in the conference.