FOOTBALL: Goldsboro-Farmville Central capsule

By News-Argus Staff
Published in Sports on September 22, 2016 10:00 AM

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Goldsboro (0-5)

at Farmville Central (3-2)

Last week: Goldsboro lost 41-13 to Northern Nash; Farmville Central lost 27-20 to Greene Central.

Last meeting: 2015, Farmville Central won 14-10.

Notable: Cougars seek to snap seven-game skid.

GHS head coach Bennett Johnson's thoughts on Farmville Central: "They're a very good team, opened the season with a win at Kinston, so that tells you all you need to know about the caliber of team we are playing. They're a big, physical team ... strong, aggressive. On offense, they don't do anything too cute. They line up, punch you in the mouth and do it play after play after play. That's what they believe in and they're very good at doing it. It will be a tough matchup for sure, going to their place Friday night, but it's one we're looking forward to. We've had a good week of practice and I'm hoping that translates into some good play Friday night."

Coach Johnson, are you more concerned about Farmville, or are you concentrating on the fact this is your last non-conference game before conference play starts? "We're absolutely trying to concentrate on us. We obviously do our homework and do our film study, things of that nature to make sure we're prepared for Farmville Central. Our message has been let's focus on us, play as hard and as good as we can play. And execute the best that Goldsboro can execute. All of those other things that go on on the other side of the ball with the other team, that will take care of itself. The wins and losses will take care of themselves if we just go out and put our best foot forward."

How does the team get out of its current rut? "The best to get out of the rut we're in is just do things to help ourselves. Yeah, we've have gotten beat by the other teams so far, but also Goldsboro has beat Goldsboro many times this year at crucial points in the game -- whether it's a turnover or not executing or not lining up correctly or false starting or jumping offsides. Little things that we can and will have been correcting to where we've gotten a little better each week. We still them at crucial moments that just hurt our chances to win. It's hard enough to beat the other team, we don't need to help them out. So, that's going to be the biggest thing to get us out of rut -- Goldsboro not beat Goldsboro.

Who, on your team, is starting to break out of their shell since the first week of the season? "Jacob Owens is a guy who immediately comes to mind. We've asked him to do so much. He doesn't come off the field on offense, defense or special teams. He is on the team all night long. We put him on the other team's best receiver. He has absolutely responded to the challenge. Some other guys who should get credit for stepping up are Emmanuel Persky on the offensive line, who has come a long way on both lines. RJ Dodson is a guy, regardless of the circumstances we've faced so far this year, he's just been true ... come to work every day and battled on the field every Friday night with effort and a good attitude. There's definitely a good nucleus within this group and talent within this group to definitely getting this ship to sailing the right way. I hope this Friday night it begins to turn."