Friday night’s performance on the gridiron in Newton was not what the ADM Tigers were looking for, especially from the perspective of defensive coordinator Bric Nelson.

Nelson, an all-state defensive back in 1998 for ADM, takes a lot of pride in leading a stout defensive unit that plays fast and creates turnovers, but that didn’t happen Friday.

Newton accumulated 512 yards of total offense against the Tigers, 361 of which came on the ground.  Dual-threat quarterback Tyler Wood gave ADM fits drive after drive, as the junior threw for 151 yards and four touchdowns, and also ran for 109 yards himself.

Nelson says Friday’s game was a struggle in numerous areas defensively, but the loss came as a result of guys simply not showing up mentally ready to play.

“I was pretty sick after the game.  Being non-district, you can look and say, ‘well, it really doesn’t matter’.  It does to me because this is a defense that I know can play a heck of a lot better.  And you know honestly, I think it was a total team effort on our side–we were finding a way not to win that game.  We were in week seven, and those are mistakes you make in week one or week two.  There is no excuse for the way we played so the outcome of the game, we deserved that 100 percent.”

Nelson says the ADM coaches will do their best to put the Newton loss behind their players so they can move on and get refocused for Perry this Friday.  Even with two games remaining on the schedule, Nelson calls it a must-win.

“I think there are things that (can) shakeup that say if we lost this game we could still make playoffs, but that’s not going to be our approach at all.  The only approach we’re going to take is, ‘you win this game or you’re going home’.

As always, tune in to 107.9FM, KKRF this Friday for pregame at 7 and kick-off at 7:30.