Football Preview: Life Oak Cliff Lions vs. Palmer Bulldogs
Two dominant signal callers in Camren Phillips and Eric Cisneros are getting ready to go toe-to-toe. The Life Oak Cliff Lions are taking a road trip to challenge the Palmer Bulldogs at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. Expect the scorekeeper to be kept busy: if their previous games are any indication, the two teams will really light up the scoreboard.
Life Oak Cliff will bounce into Friday's matchup after beating Madison, who they had gone 0-8 against in their eight prior meetings. Life Oak Cliff had just enough and edged Madison out 44-42.
Phillips and Jatavion Smith-Adams were among the main playmakers for Life Oak Cliff as the former rushed for 99 yards and five touchdowns and the latter gained 309 total yards. Smith-Adams also rushed for 269 rushing yards, which is notable because Life Oak Cliff is 3-1 when he posts at least 80 rushing yards, but 1-2 otherwise.
He was just one part of a punishing run game: Life Oak Cliff was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 368 rushing yards. That's a new trend for them: they were averaging 92.2 rushing yards per game earlier this season, but in their last three matches they've averaged 198.
Meanwhile, Palmer entered their tilt with Whitesboro on Friday with three consecutive wins but they'll enter their next game with four. They walked away with a 41-33 victory over the Bearcats.
Cisneros continued his habit of posting crazy stat lines, rushing for 241 yards and three touchdowns while picking up 10.5 yards per carry, and also throwing for 135 yards and a touchdown while completing 73.3% of his passes. Those 241 rushing yards gave him a new career-high. Jace Micheal Jones was in the mix as well, providing Palmer with a touchdown.
Palmer wouldn't let Whitesboro keep a hold of the ball as they managed to force two fumbles. Palmer can thank Landon Munoz and Micheal Jones for forcing both of them.
Life Oak Cliff now has a winning record of 4-3. As for Palmer, they have been performing well recently as they've won five of their last six games, which provided a nice bump to their 6-2 record this season.
The upcoming contest will be a clash of competing strengths. Life Oak Cliff has relied on air attacks this season and has averaged 315 passing yards per game. Palmer, on the other hand, has relied on a stout run game: they average 236.1 rushing yards per game. So which strategy will prevail on Friday? There's only one way to find out.
Life Oak Cliff was taken down by Palmer 49-13 in their previous meeting back in November of 2017. Can Life Oak Cliff avenge their defeat or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
