Despite fourteen penalties and four negated touchdowns called against the Trojans in their loss to Dale County Friday night, Charles Henderson head coach Brad McCoy says the team isn’t making excuses.

“We don’t try to make excuses,” he said Monday. “What we told the team is that you cannot put the game where the officials can decide it. We explained to our guys if we were making plays and executing like we were supposed to be doing, the penalties and calls wouldn’t make a difference

“We can’t control the officiating. We need to worry about what we can control: catching the football, tackling better.”

The officiating in Friday’s game against 3A Dale County prompted outrage and complaints among many Trojan fans and even had the coaches and players concerned.

“It was a rough night,” McCoy said. “We had 14 penalties for 130 yards and four touchdowns negated because of a penalty or because of being called out of bounds …

“After looking at the video on Saturday, some of the calls were correct, but others were iffy.”

He cited calls such as a five-yard penalty for a coach whose foot was on part of the sideline or the unsportsmanlike conduct penalty issued to him when he went down to talk to an official. “Some of them were close calls and some were nitpicky.”

McCoy said CHHS could pursue a couple of different options in addressing the quality of calls on Friday.

“(A school) does have the ability to scratch a crew from ever calling one of your games again, and that’s what we’re going to try to do,” he said. “We just don’t want them calling our games.”

Officiating aside, McCoy said the coaching staff is focused on preparing the 1-1 Trojans for the Friday’s region game against Greenville.

“We got the kids in Sunday afternoon and, once we turned on the film of Greenville, the thoughts about Dale County went away,” he said, referencing Greenville’s decisive 58-14 win over Booker T. Washington last week.

“Their players speak for themselves, and their video speaks for itself,” he said.

Kickoff is 7 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Troy.