Chargers look to bounce back and find its rhythm in final five games of regular season

The bye week came at a good time for the Boerne Champion football team, according to head coach Blane Ellis.

Champion was off last week and resumes district play this Friday on the road at New Braunfels. The Chargers and Unicorns clash at 7 p.m.

“We used the week to get our legs back, the break is always good,” Ellis said. “The players got some evenings and afternoons off they wouldn’t normally get.” Basically, the Chargers had a couple of threeday weekends bookended around some good days of practice in between.

Like every other football team in the nation, the Chargers have their share of bumps and bruises but overall, Ellis they’re doing pretty good in that department.

Champion is coming off a wild 73-66 loss to Seguin on Sept 27. Ellis said they saw a couple of things on film they need to fix.

“We couldn’t get off the field defensively on third downs,” he said. “We had them in third-and-long situations, and if we get off the field, we win the game.”

The coach said it hurts to give up 73 points in one contest. Ellis is a former defensive coordinator and he’s been in situations like that where the other team is playing downhill and everything seems to be working for them on that night.

“I’ve been there a couple of different times and there’s no worse feeling in the world when your offense scores a bunch of points but you can’t make one or two stops defensively,” he said. “That’s a hard thing to process but you have to give credit to Seguin, they did a good job and they’re athletic.”

Ellis said they tried to simplify a few things defensively going into Friday’s meeting with the Unicorns.

“At times we were trying to do too much against Seguin, so we needed to simplify,” he said.

New Braunfels is 2-0 in district (4-1 overall) and has defeated MacArthur and Victoria East.

“They’re a quality team and we have to limit their big plays because they have the ability to be explosive,” Ellis said. “Offensively they’re similar to Smithson Valley. They like to run a pro-style offense; they’ll run it and then throw the ball.”

Ellis said the Chargers need to force some turnovers and that should help them against the Unicorns.

“We’ve had three or more take aways in every game and we only came up with one turnover against Seguin,” he said.

At 0-2 in district, the Chargers will have some work to do going forward if they’re going to make the playoffs. They have five games left on the schedule and will likely need to win at least four of those games.

Ellis said their approach will be simple – just focus on the game at hand for that particular week.

“We’ll take it one week at a time, that’s how you eat an elephant – one bite at a time,” he said. “We’re capable of it. That’s been our message all week, we’re proud of our guys and we believe in what they can do.”