GRIDIRON GLANCE ’22: May Tigers

August 17, 2022 at 6:35 am Derrick Stuckly

MAY – The May Tigers have reached the Class A Division I football state championship game in each of the last two seasons, and four times since 2013. While the second state title in program has alluded 19th-year head coach Craig Steele thus far, he has turned May into a perennially elite six-man program. And the Tigers are no strangers when it comes to replacing a large contingent of the roster and still managing to find their way to AT&T Stadium in Arlington, which will be required again this fall.

May – which was ranked No. 3 in the state in Dave Campbell’s Texas Football magazine – returns just six of 13 lettermen and two starters on each side of the ball from last year’s 14-1 club, which was ranked No. 1 in the state most of the season. Despite the losses to graduation, the program expectations remain.

“I feel like once you’ve gotten to the point that we’ve gotten to expectations don’t really change, just the players in the uniform change,” Steele said. “The kids understand that. They understand what’s expected of them. They doesn’t mean you always get there, but that’s what’s expected and that’s what we’re shooting for.”

Regarding the strengths of the 2022 Tigers, Steele said, “Our numbers are extremely high, we had 25 kids out. I’d also say that team speed. It’s not like last year where we had a couple of really, really fast kids, but as a group they’ve all got a little bit of speed. We’re not as fast in a couple of spots, but as a group we have decent speed and that should help us out.”

When it comes to areas that need improvement, Steele said, “The main thing for us is fitting people in spots. Coming out of 2020 we lost nine seniors, but we already pretty much knew who was going to fill those roles. This year’s different. There’s a lot more question marks, not so much about who is playing, but where they’re playing and that’s what we’re trying to figure out at this time, and probably through a lot of non-district, too. We want to make sure we have people in the right spots.”

Returning from last year’s squad are preseason District 14-A Division I Defensive MVP Damian Salinas, along with Luke McKenzie.

“Those two kids are going to be big in everything we do,” Steele said. “Bryson Guerrero, Kross Kenyon and Jackson Easterling, all three of those kids played at various times during the playoffs and played pretty large roles. Alexis Mejia is a senior who did not play last year, but he’s back and he’s going to be a big help. He’s our biggest kid and he can really block and will help us a lot. Another kid that’s going to have to play a much larger role than last year is Braden Steele.”

The Tigers are again playing their traditional stellar set of pre-district foes with games against Jayton, Austin St. Stephens, Knox City, Garden City, San Marcos Academy and Burnet Smoking for Jesus Christian.

Of the pre-district goals, Steele first cited, “Survival. It’s a grinder of a schedule. I’ve seen a lot of people’s non-district schedules and there’s a couple that I wouldn’t trade with, but not many; most people I would. Coming out injury free is going to be really important, and I want to see us get better. I could see us go 6-0 in our non-district schedule and I can see us going 2-4 in our non-district schedule. If anything, Westbrook has proven that your non-district schedule can be tough and you can lose a few games and still get to the top of the mountain. We’re not going to panic, we’ve been there before, we just want to make sure we’re getting better whether it’s a win or a loss and ready for district.”

The Tigers will find themselves in a tougher league this season as District 14-A Division I also includes No. 4 Jonesboro as well as Lometa, Evant and Santa Anna. May will be targeting a seventh straight district championship.

“It’s not an easy district,” Steele said. “Santa Anna is still coming up and has a few upperclassmen to go with a good group of sophomores. Evant’s under new leadership and they have the numbers in their school, so if those kids come out and play there’s no telling what Evant can do. Then Jonesboro and Lometa are pretty much in the playoffs every year, so somebody’s not making it and I hope that’s not us.”

As for what it will take for the Tigers to make a push for a third straight trip to Arlington, Steele pointed to team chemistry as the biggest key.

“Gelling as a team,” Steele said. “We lost a lot of senior leadership and that’s one of the things we’ve been paying attention to during practices and during conditioning, who’s going to step up as leaders and help this team gel? That’s really a forgotten point in football. Everybody looks at how fast you are, how quick you are, how strong you are, if you throw the ball well, and they forget what goes on in the locker room. What goes on when those kids aren’t on the field is almost as important as what goes on when they’re on it. If it’s not right off it, it’s not going to be right on it, either. That’s where we’re really paying attention to as a staff, seeing how they’re coming together.”

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MAY TIGERS 2022 VARSITY FOOTBALL SCHEDULE

Aug. 26	at Jayton	8 p.m.
Sept. 2	Austin St. Stephens	7:30 p.m.
Sept. 9	at Knox City	7:30 p.m.
Sept. 16	Garden City	7:30 p.m.
Sept. 23	San Marcos Academy	7:30 p.m.
Sept. 30	at Burnet Smoking for Jesus	7:30 p.m.
Oct. 7	Evant*#	7:30 p.m.
Oct. 14	at Lometa*	7:30 p.m.
Oct. 21	Santa Anna*	7:30 p.m.
Oct. 28	at Jonesboro*	7 p.m.
Nov. 4	OPEN