Guthrie vs. McGuinness: A few keys for Guthrie

Guthrie opens its season with a brief road trip to McGuinness Friday night. Based on their win last year, the Bluejays should be favored in this one but first games have a way of getting interesting in a hurry. Here’s a few keys for Gutrhie in their opener:

Mellow out
Sophomore Bryan Dutton will be making his first career start in a season opener that’s a big game even if it doesn’t count as far as the district standings. Dutton will have the appropriate butterflies and Rafe Watkins has been around long enough to handle newbie quarterbacks. He won’t ask Dutton to do too much in his first start.

Find LaRone Richardson and Sam Crabtree and tackle them
Easier said than done. Richardson (5-8, 150) is a home run hitter at running back for the Irish. If he gets into the open field, watch out. Crabtree (5-10, 170) does the same thing at receiver. But given the fact McGuinness will be starting a freshman in Quinn Shanbour. Given Kenny Young’s generally conservative offense, Crabtree’s ability to make plays could be muted a bit.

Forget last year
Guthrie ended McGuinness’ 28-game winning streak this time last season. The Irish lost a lot of talent from last year’s team but there’s still plenty of guys around that remember that one. As we said before, this game doesn’t count, but you can bet McGuinness will come out fired up on their home field to get a little revenge. A few missed tackles, a drive killing holding penalty and a turnover or two gives McGuinness all it needs to pull of a win. And oh yeah, the Irish are a top 5 team in Class 4A, and for good reason. They’re going to be good.