After tackling the opportunity of an open week, the Farmers (2-3) will be going head to head with Flower Mound (1-4) in their first district game of the season tonight at Neal Wilson Stadium.

Head coach Gregg Miller said that Flower Mound’s record is deceiving as FMHS has played teams that have improved since last year, making the Jaguars a challenge.

“I know they played Sachse, and Sachse’s rolling everybody,” Miller said. “Colleyville Heritage is really good this year. Flower Mound’s offense has kind of sputtered, like ours has sputtered. Someone has to lose Friday night and it’s going to be the guys that can’t control the football.”

One of the challenges for the Farmers will be the quarterbacks. Last year, Flower Mound’s junior quarterback Connor Wanhanen passed for three touchdowns and rushed one. Now, back as a senior, he is not alone.

“He’s not even their starter,” Miller said. “They’ve got a better one. They’ve got John Hoffmeister who’s the senior quarterback. Their quarterbacks are always big and physical kids.”

Miller said the Jaguars are defensively very solid.

“Their defense is kind of like our defense,” Miller said. “They don’t blitz everybody and try to out-athlete you. They stand firm in what they do and try to slow you down and wrestle the ball away from you, and it causes you to create some mistakes and errors that stop you.”

Offensively, Miller called the Jaguars “problematic.”

“Offensively, their scheme is a challenge,” Miller said. “They throw the ball a lot. It’s no huddle and it’s a fast-paced deal and they get you on your heels. It can cause problems schematically.”

This game is a must win for the team after the loss against McKinney Boyd, 57-7, two weeks ago, especially with all the practice work put in during the open week, Miller said.

“We talked about how a big win will get you beat, and we got beat really bad,” Miller said. “That whole weekend I was very frustrated and very worried over how our kids’ mentality would be on Monday, and it was awesome. We watched video on Monday and we practiced three days after that and they had really good practices. This week’s been real upbeat. I’m looking forward to what we can do Friday night.”

The open week also gave the Farmers a chance to recover from injuries and re-energize.

“We had a hard time moving the ball and a hard time getting some things done [against McKinney Boyd], and we had some key injuries,” Miller said. “Usually the second half is a strong half for us, and we lost Trinity Benson and Jason Foley in the first half and those are two huge parts of our offense.

“It allowed some of our kids who have been nursing some little injuries, little nagging injuries, to kind of sit back, and do what they do and take it easy. And it’s hard on some of them too because they don’t want to take it easy. They don’t want to rest. They’re afraid they’re gonna lose their edge.”

Miller said he is content with how the team managed the open week: not as an off week.

“Open weeks are tough weeks,” Miller said. “You have to approach them just like an opponent. If you approach it like an off week, that’s how your kids are going to approach it. They attacked open week. If open week was an opponent, we would have won this week because they had a really, really great week of practice.”

After the win against Arlington, the team had gained a sense of fulfillment and confidence, Miller said, adding that both the defeat against McKinney and the open week helped the team focus.

“Our kids kind of thought they’ve arrived, and we’re as good as anybody else, and when you get to feeling that way, somebody’s going to kick the stool out from under you,” Miller said. “And they did, they probably did us a favor. If we had beaten McKinney Boyd, we’d probably still be standing on that stool, thinking we’re just walking the dog. But when someone comes up and slaps your puppy, you can’t do anything about it.”