“It might have been a little case of the deadlegs through all the lifting and running we’ve been doing with them,” Manning said Friday. “We’ve been taking a Monday like we do a Wednesday. In fact, we’re about to go to practice right now and we had the scrimmage last night.”

But the T-Wolves are likely to back off a bit from the heavy practice schedule with next week’s Crosstown Clash looming large.

Nice backfield

With shifty tailback Coory Freeman, who’s strong and quick despite his 5-foot-5 stature, tight ends, who work more like fullbacks, Ronnie Herron and Alec Wilkinson, and a couple of quarterbacks who can run the ball in Trenton Wright and Chad Anderson, it looks like the Tigers will have some luck on the ground this season.

All the aforementioned players had nice runs Thursday night against Putnam City North.

Getting pumped

Most high school players, sadly, stop paying attention once their portion of the scrimmage is over. They wander the sidelines, talk about anything but the game, sit on the bench or stare blankly at something in the distance.

But NHS’ junior varsity guys were pretty enthusiastic while the varsity was on the field Thursday at Putnam City Stadium.

While the Tigers were out for their defensive plays, the sidelines erupted with chants of “De-fense (thump, thump). De-fense.”

And when NHS had the ball?

“Off-ense (thump, thump). Off-ense.”

It was good to see the younger guys in the game, even if they weren’t in the game.