ARLEY, Ala. – After punching their ticket the postseason last fall, the Meek Tigers are ready to put together another playoff push in 2025. The Tigers have experience returning all over the field and Head Coach Daniel Evans is happy to report a productive offseason for his squad.
“We’ve had probably one of the best offseasons that I can remember in a while. There haven’t really been any lulls or any kids checking out or anything like that. We’ve been pretty locked in since January or February I’d say. So, we’ve had a pretty good offseason,” Evans said. “We don’t do spring because we’ll play a jamboree, and I think that probably helped because they got a little time off before we started summer, but this group has been really good. They work, they’re self-motivated and that’s something that is becoming increasingly rare. We’ve got a good group of seniors and leaders that all like each other and our team chemistry is pretty good so that’s definitely helped us be better in the offseason.”
Meek will have some familiar faces at several positions back on the field this fall and that makes things much easier on Evans and his staff as they prepare to kick things off on Aug. 22.
“Fortunately for us we’ve got experienced guys at pretty much every level on offense and defense which is a luxury that doesn’t happen very often. We’ve got some young guys that are going to have to step up in some spots but there’s not really one section where we’re too young. It’s a good mix of older and younger guys. Then we’ve got some older guys that have played a lot of reps, so I feel pretty good about us, especially up front on both sides of the ball. The defensive line was really good last year and it’s going to be really good again this year. On the offensive line we’ve got three returning starters and a fourth guy that played a lot of reps so we’re really just breaking in one kid so that’s good,” Evans said. “It helps to have a quarterback and a running back that have a lot of reps and that’s what we have. Evan (McCay) our quarterback will be in his third year as a starter. He started as a freshman and same thing with Hunter Wyatt our running back. He’s someone that’s been getting carries since he was a freshman so we’re pretty experienced even though we’ve got some younger guys and that definitely helps us out. I’m feeling pretty good about where we’re at and what we’ll be able to do. Now nothing matters until you play games, but we feel good about the group we have.”
The goal for every team when the season kicks off is to win every game each week and the Tigers certainly have big goals when it comes to wins but outside of the results, Evans wants to see his team play each snap hard, physically and at full speed.
“It’s the same thing for us all the time, playing hard and playing physical. We always want to be physical, and we preach that at practice and with what we do in the weight room. We like to run the football and tackle well so physicality is what we’re looking for but other than that I would just say our hustle and our drive. We play the game at full speed and want to make sure we’re playing every down of every quarter of every game at full speed. We don’t like to see kids taking plays off or anything like that so that’s who we want to be. That’s what our mindset is.”
2025 Meek Football Schedule (1A, Region 7)
Aug. 22 – Lynn
Aug. 29 – at Winston County
Sept. 5 – Hackleburg*
Sept. 12 – Phillips Bear Creek*
Sept. 19 – Waterloo*
Oct. 3 – at Shoals Christian*
Oct. 10 – at Addison*
Oct. 17 – at Cherokee*
Oct. 24 – Vina*
Oct. 31 – at Carbon Hill
*Region Game
Check out The Cullman Tribune’s Football Fanatics preseason magazine when it becomes available for more on the Tigers and all our local teams including band and cheerleaders.
