ROBSERVATIONS: Don’t write off WCHS football yet

Two weeks into the football season, we were at an all-time high.

But as we find ourselves at the halfway point of the 2005 Pioneer campaign, stinging from three straight losses — including two straight double-digit setbacks — some tongues have started their annual wagging.

“What’s the matter, have we just all-of-a-sudden gotten bad again?” was the way one blunt Pioneer fan put it to me after last weekend’s loss to Cookeville.

“Did we get two wins, and then give up?”

The answer, simply, is no. The Pioneer football team is much improved, as has been said time and again in this space.

But so, it is clear, are the White County Warriors and Cookeville Cavaliers.

Going into the season, Cookeville was predicted by Region 3-5A coaches as their probable champion, and the Warriors were touted as having their best team in over a decade.

So don’t hang your heads, Pioneer fans. Sure, Warren County has had two straight routs hung on them, but they were by teams who will blow out plenty of other folks before this football season is over.

I’ll admit I saw some down-in-the-mouth Pioneers during the second half of the White County loss. The Warriors’ ability to score early, and often, in Sparta two weeks ago came as a shock to the Warren County squad, and their reaction to the loss was one of sorrow, and somewhat of surprise.

But last week, after falling so far behind in the first half, the Pioneers answered the challenge against the Cavs, scoring on their first two third-quarter drives.

Looking back at the Cookeville game, if you take away two heart-breaking turnovers in the fourth quarter, a last-second touchdown by the Cavs before the half, and — let’s face it — some pretty week pass coverage for the first two quarters of the game, and Warren County has Cookeville in a nail-biter.

Granted, that’s a lot to take away from a game. But you’ve got to pull a positive out of somewhere, don’t you?

But the biggest positive was on the sidelines, where there was none of the “here we go again” attitude we’ve seen on so many Friday nights in the past.

The Pioneers came out of intermission knowing they weren’t likely to win the game, but determined to make a better showing in the second half. They did exactly what they set out to do.

So don’t burn your red shirts or cancel your caravans just yet. There’s still some fire in this Pioneer team, and looking at the rest of the 2005 schedule, there are some very winnable games coming up.

The Pioneers match up as well with the remainder of their opponents as they could hope to expect, and you can bank on the fact that the players and coaching staff will be working just as hard to win these next five games as they did the first five.

So if they’re not giving up on the field, there’s no reason to give up in the stands.