The 2020 Snyder Tigers football schedule is out!
2020 will hold new and familiar challenges for the Snyder Tiger football team.
Head football coach and athletic director Wes Wood and his staff put the finishing touches on the schedule on district realignment day. While the majority of the schedule was complete before the districts were announced, unexpected shifts affected that schedule and caused them to scramble.
“When you look at the realignment, up top you have Perryton, Borger, Lubbock Estacado and Levelland. Dead center and horizontally lined, you have Seminole and Sweetwater and you have your Midland Greenwood, Sweetwater, Pecos and Monahans all down low,” Wood said. “We’ve been predicted to go north and make it a five-team district. The only other option was send us south, them north or send both of us (Snyder and Seminole) south and make a four-team district up north. I guess when you look at what is right and fair, I think it is right that you make five-team districts. I was fully expecting to be sent north, but when they sent us south, I was perfectly fine with it. You get what you get and you roll with it.”
Wood said it is actually easier for him that the team will play south.
“They sent us south, which is honestly better for me,” he said. “I know the coaches, I know the area and I get to retain some of that experience. So we were left scrambling because a lot of teams have their pre-district schedules set, but with the changes, a lot of teams’ schedules changed. So we had to shuffle it around to get the pre-district that we have set now and I am really excited about it. There is good competition but there are no games where I feel we are at a complete disadvantage.”
Snyder will open the season at home against Slaton on Aug. 28, a team the Tigers scrimmaged in 2019. Lamesa remains on the schedule as a pre-district road game on Sept. 11 and the Tigers will host Wood’s alma mater, Muleshoe, on Oct. 2.
Snyder will travel to Levelland and perhaps the biggest pre-district hurdle will be Jim Ned, a 3A Division One team that went 7-4 in 2019. Combined, the Tigers’ pre-district opponents went 20-45 in 2019 and four made the playoffs. Wood said every game is winnable for the Tigers.
“What I am excited about is giving our kids a chance to compete every single game,” he said. “Anyone with their right mind knows what kind of program Jim Ned is and what kind of athletes they have. We have Slaton, they’ll be feisty. Lamesa is a familiar face. Jim Ned is very good and Muleshoe, my hometown, is going to be fun. There will be some games that are going to be interesting for us, but I am excited to give our kids a chance to win every single game. That’s what you want your kids to feel confident in.”
Wood said that the shift to just five teams changes the competitiveness of district play.
“You’re looking at a different animal,” he said. “I was in a nine-team district back at Azle High School and it is interesting because in a nine-team district, you almost feel more accomplished when you make the playoffs because you feel like you had to do more to earn it. But it doesn’t change the fact that you have to put your best foot forward, because any given Friday night, if a team doesn’t show up, they can get their butt beat. You are going to have to play good because you can very easily put yourself in a situation where you are the odd man out. I’m fine with the five team district because it gives us more time to build a pre-district schedule and get prepared for those games so you can compete for a district championship.”