Football Preview: James Wood at Loudoun Valley

When: Today, 7 p.m.

Where: Loudoun Valley High School in Purcellville.

Records: James Wood Colonels (0-1); Loudoun Valley Vikings (0-0).

Last week: James Wood lost to Heritage 24-12; Loudoun Valley did not play.

Last year: Loudoun Valley won 17-0.

Preview: Penalties and miscues were the name of the game in James Wood’s season-opening loss to Heritage last week, and coach Mark McHale knows his team has to clean up the mistakes if it wants to be successful.

“We’re better than what we showed, but we can’t have the penalties and bad snaps and missed assignments,” said McHale, whose side only lost 24-12 despite four turnovers and 45 yards of penalties. “When they were walking off the field Friday they were saying, ‘That ain’t us, that ain’t us.’ So they know they can do better than that.”

The Colonels’ first chance to right their wrongs will come against a Loudoun Valley team that has yet to play a game this season but is already mired in controversy with the recent firing of its coach Daniel McGrath, a former Virginia Tech offensive lineman who had been the head coach since 2008.

Former offensive coordinator Anthony Long has taken over the head coaching duties and said the Vikings have done a good job of blocking out the distractions this week.

“Our kids have come together very well and they’ve stayed focused as best they can,” Long said. “The rest of the coaching staff is still intact and we’ve really focused on getting ready for our first game.”

Loudoun Valley returns a number of skill players on offense, including senior quarterback Sully Warner and senior running back Andrew Cordani, both of whom have started since they were sophomores and helped lead the Vikings to the Group 3A state semifinals last year.

Long said the Vikings will continue to be a run-based offense — Cordani has rushed for over 1,000 yards each of the past two seasons — but that they will have to fill some holes along the offensive and defensive lines.

An effective run game is exactly what James Wood will be striving for a week after managing just 60 yards on the ground.

McHale said getting senior Landon Rutherford and junior Tyler Bishop going in the rushing attack will be a focus for the Colonels against Loudoun Valley tonight.

“We’ve got to get our running game going early,” McHale said. “I think we threw it more than we ran it [against Heritage], we should have ran it more. We just never had a chance to get in a rhythm on offense.”

Defensively McHale said he liked what he saw in the opener, pointing out that it was a five-point game until late in the fourth quarter, and he expects the Colonels to play well tonight.

“We had our best practice [Wednesday],” McHale said. “The guys are fired up to get back out there.”