Looking for a 2-0 start in district play, the Vandals return to the scene of one of their most memorable and bizarre games in recent years as they will take on their Van Zandt County rival, the Canton Eagles, in a 7:30 p.m. kickoff at Canton Friday, Sept. 30.

Coach Jared Moffatt’s Vandals are now 3-2 overall but more importantly, they are currently 1-0 in District 8-4A, Division 2, after holding off the visiting Brownsboro Bears, 41-21, Sept. 23 at Van’s Memorial Stadium while the Eagles (2-3, 0-1) suffered a forgettable game at Center, losing 52-0 to the Center Roughriders Sept. 23.

In last year’s game in Canton, the Vandals had to hold on for dear life at the end as they captured a hard-earned 55-54 win after a final 43-yard field goal effort by the Eagles was no good as the ball bounced off the crossbar and back on to the field of play with no time remaining.

“Coach Ragle is in his first year at Canton and doing a really good job there,” said Moffatt. “They really pulled away from Mabank and handled them well a couple of weeks ago. That was a good win for them because Mabank was playing well at the time. They had a bad night against Center, but Center can do that to you. That game just got away from Canton. Their kids are playing hard.

“The Shaw kid is running the ball really well for them. He is a talented running back and had a great night against us last year,” pointed out Moffatt. “Prox is another great player. I am wondering if those two guys are ever going to graduate. They have a number of good players. I know they will be ready to play against us. We know after last year’s game that anything can happen when Van and Canton get together.”

The Vandal head coach said that the subject of last year’s game does come up at times in preparations for this year’s matchup.

“Sometimes it does, but usually not,” summarized Moffatt. “Each team is different. They did score 54 points on our defense last year and we typically don’t give up that many points. Our defense might remember that. This year’s game has nothing to do with last year’s game.”

Moffatt said that the Eagles defensively are an ‘even-front’ team and show a ‘4-1’ or a ‘4-2’ look with one safety.

Offensively, injuries at the quarterback position have hurt the Eagles so far this season. “They have been lining up three or four different players at quarterback at various times during the season,” said Moffatt. “In the past, Canton has run a lot of H-back formations. Now, they line up in the shotgun but will show a tight end or a wingback at times. They are more multiple offensively this year than in the past.”

Moffatt also had some follow-up comments regarding the ejection of senior linebacker Beau Barton against Paris Sept. 16 which resulted in Barton, by UIL (University Interscholastic League) rule, to sit out the first half of the game against Brownsboro Sept. 23 for allegedly kicking an opposing player at Paris.

“The deal with the UIL is that there is no review process for players that are ejected from a game,” pointed out Jared Moffatt. “I’ve got video that shows he should not have been ejected. I’ve received word from the Commerce chapter of the football officials, which was where that officiating crew was from, saying that Beau should not have been ejected. The head coach at Paris told me that Beau should have not been ejected. As it is now, none of that matters which is a broken system. It is not okay that a high school kid has to miss the first half of the next game after being ejected from the previous game, especially when the call on the field was bad. Officials are human. They make mistakes. Beau should never have been ejected from that game.

“I have recently spent a lot of time on the phone with the UIL, the Texas High School Officials Association, including the Commerce chapter, among others,” recalled Jared Moffatt. “All this to no avail because there is no appeal process to review an ejected player. At the end of football season, I am going to make a big push between then and the beginning of next football season to get that corrected. I am personally going to do that. It is not right for these kids, our kids or anybody else’s kids. There is nothing in place now for that review to take place.”

After starting as many as five sophomores throughout the 2022 season with other sophomores seeing significant playing time, Moffatt said that the time has come to stop referring to this year’s Vandals as a young football team.

“We have now played five varsity football games this season,” emphasized Moffatt. “I told all of our players, including the sophomores, that the time has come to stop calling them sophomores. They are varsity football players. We have quit making excuses for mistakes that are being made because we have sophomores. Let’s execute when it is time to execute. That’s the step we have to take as a football team right now. We have had some intellectual errors, execution errors, alignment errors, and some poor decision making. We have also had dumb penalties. We have to fix all of that right now. If we want to be a great football team, we have to do that in order to beat the teams that we need to beat right now. We have been good in spots and not so good in spots. The highly successful teams are consistent. We have to find that consistency over time playing at a high level for four quarters, nothing less. This is my challenge to our football team this week against Canton.”

In other District 8-4A, Division 2, games Friday, Sept. 30, the Brownsboro Bears (0-1 in district), will host the Carthage Bulldogs (1-0) while the Center Roughriders (1-0) will be visiting the Rusk Eagles, who be making their district debut. The Bullard Panthers (0-1) will have a bye week.

The Vandal freshmen and junior varsity teams will be hosting Canton beginning with the freshmen game starting at 5 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 29, followed by the J. V. contest at approximately 6:30 p.m.

Van’s junior high football teams will be visiting Canton with action starting at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 29.

For results of the Van/Canton VZC rivalry matchup as well as a preview of Van’s home game against Rusk Friday, Oct. 7, check out www.vanzandtnews.com.