Football Game Preview: South Bend Washington Panthers vs. New Prairie Cougars

Two dominant signal callers in Elijah Young and Reed Robinson are getting ready to go toe-to-toe. The South Bend Washington Panthers will head out on the road to challenge the New Prairie Cougars at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. Neither South Bend Washington nor New Prairie posted many points in their last games, so it might be the defenses that decide this one.

South Bend Washington is headed into the matchup out to prove that what happened against South Bend Saint Joseph on Friday (when they were outscored in every quarter) was just a minor bump in the road. The Panthers had to suffer through a 42-12 loss at the hands of the Huskies. While losing is never fun, the Panthers can't take it too hard given the team's big disadvantage in MaxPreps' Indiana football rankings (they are ranked 206th, while the Huskies are ranked 52nd).

Meanwhile, Friday just wasn't the day for New Prairie's offense. They were outmatched by Penn and fell 49-0. The contest marked the first time this year in which the Cougars were not able to get on the board.

New Prairie's defeat dropped their record down to 2-6. As for South Bend Washington, this is the second loss in a row for them and also nudges their season record down to 2-6.

South Bend Washington was taken down by New Prairie 52-8 when the teams last played back in October of 2024. That game was all but decided by halftime, at which point the Panthers were down 49-0.