Isabella’s football team may be a little behind, but coach Scott Booth thinks he has the horses to catch up soon.

The Mustangs have played only one game so far, an impressive 33-14 victory over Hale County, compared to teams that have played as many as three, or at least two, including this week’s opponent, Autaugaville.

Isabella didn’t schedule an opponent in Week 1, and the Week 3 opponent, St. Jude, closed its doors and thus has no football team. So, the Mustangs took another bye week.

Booth said the extra week off allowed some players who were banged up against Hale to get back to full strength.

Still, the coach said he’d rather the team have had a game to play—and a chance to improve.

Though there were plenty of positiveS in the win over Hale, there were some correctable mistakes also, including turnovers, a drive that included four penalties in a row and some dropped interceptions on defense.

“We have got to try to clean up some of that stuff, but our effort, our scheme has been good,” Booth said, because he knows the Mustangs this season will be involved in some close games that could be decided by a mistake or two. “We’ve been really pleased with the way our players are hustling.”

Autaugaville is an example of how an opponent can take advantage of IHS miscues. Booth said an abundance of speed on the opposing sideline will make it imperative that IHS players focus for the full game and avoid any mistakes that could result in a quick touchdown for the visitors.

The most significant threat might be junior Stefan Palmer, a 6-foot-1, 170-pound speedster who lines up at quarterback but also at receiver.

“If you don’t contain them, they can get loose at any time of the game,” Booth said. “They don’t have a lot of size, so we should have an advantage there. But they’re coming off a loss, so they should be up. And we’ve had big games before, and I’m sure they’ll be talking about how this is a rivalry.

“We just want to play better this week than we did last week,” Booth said. “If we keep doing that every week, we can be pretty good.”

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Also this week

•Gordo at Billingsley

•Oxford at Chilton Co.

•Chilton Christian at Faith-Roanoke

•Jemison at Demopolis

•Maplesville at Keith

•R.C. Hatch at Thorsby

•Loachapoka at Verbena

–All games begin at 7 p.m. Friday unless noted otherwise.