WARDSVILLE - It's going to be quiet tonight at the Falcon Athletic Complex.
The Blair Oaks Falcons have earned the top seed in Class 3 District 6 and home-field advantage throughout district play, but because there are only seven teams in the district, the Falcons received a first-round bye tonight.
That will change some of the routine Blair Oaks players and coaches have grown accustomed to during the past nine weeks.
"There are only two differences that our kids see," Blair Oaks coach Terry Walker said. "Our practice schedule has stayed pretty much the same for this week, we're maintaining a routine. The only thing we're doing different is we're shortening the practices just slightly, but we're still practicing the same number of days, and we're still practicing pretty much at the exact same time.
"The only other difference is there's no game on Friday night."
The Falcons won't be taking tonight off, however.
"In order to try and simulate that to the best we can, we're going to load the kids up on a bus and we're going to go watch a game," Walker said. "We're going to go watch Fulton and Winfield play."
Blair Oaks will face the winner of tonight's Fulton-Winfield game in the district semifinals next Friday.
Walker said he and the coaching staff kicked around a few ideas, trying to decide what exactly to do this week since there is no game to play. He said he had considered giving players a couple days off, but he also thought about keeping the schedule exactly the same.
Another possibility was to hold an intra-squad scrimmage tonight, just to get players to go through the motion and continue the trend of playing on Friday nights.
"Ultimately, we decided just to continue to do what we were doing, with maybe shortening things just a little bit to give the kids an opportunity to spend a little more time on their school work or to have an opportunity to rest a little bit more than they would during the normal course of the week," Walker said.
Walker also found it more beneficial to see the Falcons' future opponent in person. With the exception of California, a participant in the Blair Oaks Jamboree in August, Blair Oaks has had to rely on film of previous games to prepare for its opponents.
"The biggest thing I notice is the speed of the players," Walker said. "On film, it's really hard to discern how fast a kid really is moving, how elusive is the kid you're playing against.
"When you get to watch someone in person, you get to see a lot of that, and then you also get to see some of the body language of the kids in between plays that film won't capture for you, because we only film from whistle to whistle, essentially. It's not a continuous run of the film."
Once the Fulton-Winfield game ends tonight, Walker said the routine returns to normal Saturday.
"On Saturday morning, we do some game planning," Walker said. "We do a lot of game planning on Sunday afternoon. Then, from the kids' perspective, the only thing different for them is normally they watch film on Saturday morning. Well, this Saturday morning, we're going to come out and have a light practice, already having an idea of how we want to try and attack the team offensively and defensively."
Since there is no opponent for the Falcons this week, the first couple days of practice earlier this week were spent shaping up on fundamentals.
"Given the fact that you have to game plan a little bit and you have to do some scheming and prepare for the next week's opponent, sometimes you end up cutting some of your fundamental drills a little bit short so you can get that stuff in," Walker said. "We're going to take a fair amount of time and focus on those fundamentals, and then we'll look ahead to see who we could potentially be playing and try and figure out what things those teams do."
Blair Oaks (9-0) is coming off a 45-6 win last Friday against Warsaw, wrapping up another Tri-County Conference championship.
"I thought we were pretty sharp defensively," Walker said. "The previous games we had played - California, Osage and the game before that - I thought our front was not as gap-conscious. We didn't have big seams, but we had some seams in there, and we really spent a lot of time the week leading up to Warsaw really focused on being gap-conscious and maintaining good, solid gap integrity. For the most part, I thought we did that against Warsaw."
One of the perks to having a bye week is to give players with injuries some extra rest. But other than a concussion suffered by Jake Van Ronzelen during the first half of the season, the Falcons have been free of significant injuries this year.
Walker knows all too well injuries can happen at any time.
"You can't argue with some benefits of the bye week," Walker said. "Last year, we didn't have a bye, but we went out on Friday night of the first round and Cody (Alexander) sustained a shoulder injury. Now we're worried about if he's going to be OK for the next round of the playoffs.
"Hopefully we can avoid that by having the bye, but you can just as easily sustain an injury in practice."
Notes: Blair Oaks ended the regular season ranked No. 2 in Class 3 in this week's Missouri Media Rankings. The Falcons trail top-ranked Maryville and received one first-place vote. In other games tonight in Class 3 District 6, No. 2 Mexico will host O'Fallon Christian, while No. 3 Southern Boone will host Wright City. Blair Oaks finished with 48.69 points in the district standings, less than a full point ahead of Mexico. With the Blair Oaks softball team playing in the Class 2 state tournament in Springfield this weekend, Walker said he arranged practice times so football players could attend the games without missing practice. The Lady Falcons play at 11 a.m. today, which allows players plenty of time to return home for the Fulton-Winfield game. If Blair Oaks advances to the championship game, Walker said he would dismiss practice at 9 a.m. Saturday so players could attend the title game at noon.