Monterey Wildcats football head coach Scott Hughes started a career high 13 new players Friday in the opening night loss to Cannon County.
Hughes began his 12th season as Monterey head coach Friday. Hughes said while he knows the new Wildcats players made some mistakes in the loss, he could not be prouder of how the kids played.
“We saw a tremendous amount of fight and battle from our guys start to finish,” Hughes said. “We played hard the whole game. We evaluate the film a lot of times on effort as well and at no point did we see any issues in that.”
The game marked the fifth straight season the two teams clashed on opening week. Cannon County won for the first time in five attempts 31-0. Hughes said sometimes the lights get a little brighter when the regular season begins.
“You can go through as many scrimmages as you want, jamborees, whatever,” Hughes said. “It’s still not the same as that game experience.”
Hughes said Week One brought new challenges for everyone in the Upper Cumberland.
“Everybody’s a front-runner,” Hughes said. “Everybody gets along great when the game goes good. Everybody gets along when you’re winning. It’s when you get hit in the face that that other side kind of shows up.”
The Wildcats will play their next game Friday against Cumberland County.