Matt Vines

NATCHITOCHES – Red River coach Travis Gary says he approves of the effort with which his Bulldogs are playing.

Now it’s time to clean up mistakes.

Red River fell to Class 4A Tioga in the Battle on the Bricks jamboree at Northwestern State by a score of 21-12 on Saturday.

“I like the passion our guys are playing with,” Gary said. “We play hard, and because of that, we have a huge upside.

“As our guys are continuing to learn their roles and adjust to game speed, we will be exactly where we need to be soon.”

Tackling early in the season is on the top of every team’s list of improvements, and Red River is no different.

The Bulldogs are returning just two players who played regularly from last year’s stalwart defense.

“We have to improve our tackling and our attention to detail on defense,” Gary said. “We are young, but as long as we continue to play with effort and speed, we’ll get to where we need to be.

“We’ll improve our tackling as the jamboree was the first time a lot of our guys got live action reps. We are still adjusting to game speed, but once they settle in, we’ll be fine.”

Red River kicks off its regular season at Catholic-Pointe Coupee on Friday.