MEADVILLE — Franklin County has one more game to go this week before district play starts.

And head coach Ricky O’Quinn said he’s hoping his players will take the next step toward being ready for those games.

Franklin County (2-3) will travel to Mendenhall High School Friday, and the Bulldogs are looking to correct a lot of mental mistakes that plagued them in a 33-17 loss to Taylorsville last week.

“We had a bunch of mistakes. We thought coming out of the South Pike game (a 20-6 win) that we had cleaned things up,” O’Quinn said.

“When you play a bunch of freshmen and sophomores, and a lot of juniors are starting for the first time, those things will happen. Hopefully our guys understand that they were beating themselves.”

Most of the mistakes revolved around penalties that both made it easier for Taylorville to score, and made it tougher for Franklin County to score.

“On their first drive, Taylorsville got 25 yards on penalties. We had a holding penalty that negated a touchdown,” O’Quinn said.

“They converted a fake punt on fourth and seven. We had missed blocks and assignments, and those kinds of things can swing the momentum of a game and shouldn’t happen.

“We have to get those cleaned up if we want to have any hope of playing postseason ball.”

Mendenhall is an option-based team, which will make the mental aspect all the more important for the Bulldogs Friday, O’Quinn said.

“They’re kind of like Georgia Tech. We have to play our assignments and do everything right,” O’Quinn said.

“They can be multiple (on offense), but from what we’ve seen, they mainly like to run the football. We have to step up defensively and prepare to stop them.”

Like Franklin County, Mendenhall has played a tough schedule, so O’Quinn is expecting a good game despite Mendenhall’s record.

“We feel like they’re a pretty good ball club. They only have one win, but they’ve played some 5A and 6A schools like Brandon, Petal and Laurel,” O’Quinn said.

“When you play quality teams like that, you’re going to lose some.”

Kickoff at Mendenhall is at 7:30 Friday night.