SportsZone Football Friday game of the week preview: Smith-Cotton at Battle
COLUMBIA, Mo (KMIZ)
After four weeks full of start and stops, the Battle Spartans are getting their second-consecutive game underway versus the Smith-Cotton Tigers on Saturday.
You can watch the game live at noon on KZOU over the air channel 17.3. Here is a look at other local listings:
- DirecTV - channel 18
- Dish Network - channel 32
- Mediacom - channel 12, 709
- Centurylink - channel 12
- Spectrum - channel 183
Watch the game live online in the player below.
Head coach Atiyyah Ellison and the Spartans were supposed to host the Rock Bridge Bruins on Friday night, however, the Bruins were instructed to self-isolate due to COVID-19 exposure.
Battle has gone through four-straight weeks in which its games have been affected by COVID-19.
"We, as coaches, have never been through this, so it's kind of hard to console them because you don't know how they feel," Ellison said.
He added that, through it all, his guys have kept high spirits.
"I think, overall, football is the release," Ellison said. "They can come to practice and look forward to games when a lot of people can't right now."
In Battle's previous matchup with Moberly, the Spartans saw their closest win of the 2020 season, 37-36.
Ellison said they put themselves into situations that are easily avoided with the fundamentals.
"Everybody on the defense needs to tackle and everybody on offense, if you don't have the ball, needs to block is what is comes down to," he said.
While looking ahead to a Saturday meeting with Smith-Cotton, Ellison said there is still a lot more up his team's sleeve.
We've had some receivers that haven't really had a chance to shine yet, but they can do some great things too," he said. "I know there's a lot of focus on our run game, but we have some receivers and special teams that do a lot for us."
