Mike Malham’s Panthers of Cabot are a tough out week in and week out. His teams are always well-coached and his offense always runs the ball well. Bryant Coach Buck James said the Dead-T offense of Cabot is something his guys haven’t seen all year.
“They’re not a team to be taken lightly by any means,” James said. “They struggled last week and the week before, but they’ll be fighting for their playoff lives. We’ve got to play well. It’s a very unorthodox offense nowadays. It used to not be, but now is something we don’t see very often.”
Any T-formation offense has the threat of three runners in the backfield and the quarterback himself. On any given play one of four people can run the ball, not to mention the options in the passing game and the threat of sweep plays with receivers. It’s often decided after the snap who will run the ball based on the commitment of tacklers.
Cabot (4-3, 2-2 Central) would like to grind the game out and win the time-of-possession battle. After seeing so many runs, linebackers and safeties start to play too close to the line of scrimmage and holes open up in the secondary. That’s where Malham likes to strike.
“They wanna make it an eight-possession game,” James said. “They don’t want you to have the ball. They wanna have the ball and milk it. A successful play for them is a 3-yard run. They cobble a few of those together, then they hit you for a 10- or 15-yard play and come back and do it all over again.”
The Hornets (7-0, 4-0) and Panthers will kick off at 7 p.m. at Panther Stadium in Cabot. Listen on 93.7 FM/690 AM.