Bucks compete in final preseason tuneup at Wall

In their final scrimmage before the regular season begins, the Breckenridge Buckaroos football team showed promise and competitiveness against one of the top teams in the state. Traveling to Wall High School, the Bucks had a number of positives to take away from the final tuneup against the third-ranked team in Class 3A Division II, Thursday, Aug. 22.

“I think I was made out to be a liar after the things I said last week when we were coming here. Playing a very good football team, they were going to try and eat us alive,” Head Coach Casey Pearce said. “And at times they did, but we did sustain a couple of drives. Self-inflicted wounds got us, put us behind the sticks at times. We’ve got to continue to get better."

Last year, the Bucks hosted the Hawks for a scrimmage at Buckaroo Stadium and were exposed with not many positives being taken away.

“I’ll tell you what, that’s better football than we played a year ago,” Pearce said. “We didn’t come down here to lay down, because they very easily could have rolled over. We rolled over at home last year; that’s not Buckaroo football. But tonight, we competed.”

Defensively, the Bucks made plays on the ball and were consistently getting to the ball carrier. However, the problems that they had were finishing the job and wrapping up to get the player down. They played with fire and physicality while creating some pressure, but allowed a handful of back-breaking plays downfield.

There were also plays where Wall receivers were allowed too much space to come down with wide-open catches and break off a big play.

“We still have a bunch of execution pieces to clean up,” Pearce said. “Playing in space defensively is the hardest thing you do in sports, and we have to continue to learn how to do that.”

Overall, the defense had great spurts of getting penetration in the middle, but other times were not fully getting to the ball carrier to get him down.

“We just have to continue to rally. We rallied to the football and then couldn’t finish the job off,” Pearce said. “That’s frustrating, because you chip away at it, put them second-and-long, third-and-long, and then they’re able to convert and make a 10-yard gain on it.”

When the Bucks were on point, they were able to wreak havoc with a couple of tackles for loss and two turnovers – one forced fumble and an interception from Hudson Woodward. Right before Zachary Beltran laid a hit down on a ball carrier for a tackle for loss, Coach Pearce was preaching “just one” as he wanted to see at least one play where they knocked a player down behind the line.

On offense, the Bucks are still rolling with a three-quarterback system with all of them competing for a chance at the starting role. Woodward, Joseph Juneau and Cooper Wimberly all gave receivers chances with strong throws and good decision-making.

“Overall, our quarterbacks gave us chances. We’ve got to catch contested footballs… there were a couple of bad throws, but for the most part they put the ball in places that we could catch and had a chance,” Pearce said. “We’ve got to be able to take opportunities and do something with them.”

With all three quarterbacks showing their own strengths and weaknesses, Pearce is opting to not name an official starter as of yet. Both Juneau and Woodward threw an interception, while Wimberly showed great ball security and made good decisions while scrambling when needed.

“It’s gonna shake out. If we have to do anything, we’ll play another week with three dudes,” Pearce said. “I saw some great stuff out of [Wimberly], extending plays. Woodward, execution-wise, was decent. The pick I didn’t like. [Juneau’s] pick I didn’t like. [Wimberly] took care of the football and gave himself a chance.”
Pearce stated that the team just has to build on the positives and the competition helps each of them learn from each other.

“[Juneau] does some things in the huddle that are a little different than the other two, just because he’s been in that huddle before. [Woodward] does some things athletically that give us a chance. [Wimberley] is a gamey dude,” Pearce said. “Those three guys, if I named one tonight, they’ll go play next week and they’ll be on the field somewhere else, ready to rotate in there. I’m not going to name anybody until I choose to name it, and I’m proud to be able to say that, because it is a competition.”

Injury Notes

On the injury front, Christian Flores is still on track to return from his leg injury in time for district play which begins Friday, Oct. 10 after the open date. Coach Pearce said that the hope is he will get into a boot and off crutches the week of the first game, Friday, Aug. 29.
“He’ll get a little more mobile and just make his day-to-day a little easier,” Pearce said.
Truett Trammel is about a week-and-a-half—10 to 13 days—away and Pearce said that he will miss the first game but hopes to have him back for the second.
“It didn’t look like we had anybody injured tonight,” Pearce said. “Cam David’s got a—it looks like a shin bruise or something. We’ll see how that plays out.”

What's Next

The Bucks kick off their season Friday, Aug. 29 hosting the Holliday Eagles, who finished first in Class 3A-2 Region II District 6 last year with an 11-3 overall record and 5-0 district record. In last year’s matchup at Holliday, the Eagles won 64-0. Holliday is ranked seventh in Class 3A by Dave Campbell’s Texas Football.