With last Friday’s 49-32 loss at New Braunfels Canyon to open district play, Champion football coach Keith Kaiser said the team can’t afford to slip to 0-2 in 12-5A DI.
Kaiser said it was fair to call this Thursday’s contest at BISD Stadium against Buda Hays a “must win.”
The Chargers host the Hawks at 7 p.m. in Boerne.
“This one is extremely important; it is a must win. We’re going to have to grow up and we’re going to have to win this football game. There are playoff implications right now,” Kaiser said. “We’re trying to be careful but our kids have to understand that this is a big one.”
While slipping to 0-2 wouldn’t be a killer for the Chargers, it would certainly make it very tough for them to get into the playoffs.
“If we lose the season is not over but the road gets rougher,” he said. “It’s playoff time.”
Champion is 2-2 overall and 0-1 in district, while Buda Hays is 4-0 overall and 1-0 in league play after mauling MacArthur last week 64-14.
Buda Hays lost some players to Buda Johnson a few years ago when the new school opened, but they still kept enough offensive firepower and can score. The Hawks tallied 64, 27, 54 and 64 points in its four wins for an average of 52 per game.
Kaiser said Hays likes to run the ball, but will run it out of a standard formation and won’t line up in a Wing-T or Slot-T.
“It’s going to be different than Canyon Lake, but they’re a 75 percent run team and they have three guys that can go,” he said. “They run tight wings and split out two for eye candy to remove the corners. They run a lot of crisscross stuff, counter and power plays.”
In two of its three losses, Champion has jumped out to big leads on the road but couldn’t hold them against Eagle Pass and New Braunfels Canyon. They were up at the half, 27-14, at Eagle Pass and were leading Canyon 20-7 after one quarter but dropped both games.
Kaiser said they’re still working on finishing out games.
“It’s a lot of stuff, but it’s still things where we become our worst enemy,” he said. “Most of it has been our own mistakes, sometimes penalties but it’s not from a lack of effort.”
Penalties were an issue in last Friday’s game at Canyon, especially in the second half when the Cougars outscored the Chargers in the second half, 28-12. In this case, Kaiser said he felt the calls were one sided.
“We had 13 or 14 penalties in that second half and they had one. Every drive we had at least two penalties, one where we had three,” he said. “We had six calls on linemen down the field and five shouldn’t have been called.”
Kaiser said overcoming penalties is hard enough, but added that it’s harder for this year’s offense because they are more of a grind-it-out type of team.
“We’re not explosive like we were last year,” he said. “We’re not a good 1st and 15 team.”
One good thing about the loss last week was that the offense rolled up 431 total yards from scrimmage and Jordan Ballin completed 31 passes for 270 yards and three touchdowns without an interception.
Ballin also led the ground game with 46 yards and scored a rushing touchdown, while Colin Ryan also ran one in.
Kannon Brooks led the receivers with 90 yards on 12 catches and Cole Riha finished with 72 yards on three catches and two touchdowns.
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