With the start of fall practice for high school student-athletes and teams arriving on Monday you had both the Scottsbluff and Gering football teams going through conditioning workouts most of this week.
Gering was out early in the morning at the practice field at the high school while Scottsbluff got their work in at Bearcat Stadium.
For the flagship program in the panhandle it was a “down” year last season as Scottsbluff finished at 5-5 and they were bounced in a big way in a first round playoff game, losing to Aurora on the road 54-3. Head Coach Jud Hall says expectations don’t change around here after one .500 season.
“I expect to be a fast and physical football team first of all. I think that’s where we want to hang our hat. And then I expect for us to be playing our best football when we get to district play. I think that’s where you have to kind of build to that so you can be playing really well against your district opponents and go from there.”
The Bearcats will look to right the ship defensively this season while also breaking in a first year starting quarterback along with replacing plenty of beef up front.
The schedule sets up nicely for the Bearcats this year. They’ll open at home against Fort Morgan, CO on Friday, August 27th with three of their first four games coming at home. Overall they have just four road games, one of which is crosstown at Gering to end the season.
Speaking of Gering and ending a season, the season finale last year against Scottsbluff for first year Head Coach Danny O’Boyle was really the best game the Bulldogs played all season. A season that ended without a win (0-9). Ideally Gering would have liked to have had more games to build on that late season performance, instead had to find a way to use that game as a stepping stone into the offseason and summer months.
“We’ve been able to address a lot of our concerns thoughout the offseason. We brought guys in all winter and did some technique things, cleaned up some things and did some whiteboard work. We definitely feel like we’re more prepared heading into this year, I know I do for sure, going into my second year. I feel a lot more confident going into this year. I think over the offseason we were able to clean up a lot of those issues. Sit down and hammer out exactly what we wanted to do and our young guys have been doing a really good job of buying into that”, O’Boyle said on Monday morning.
One huge plus for the Bulldogs is the continuity on the coaching staff as O’Boyle brings back his entire staff from last year. O’Boyle says they’ll be very young in the trenches with the line play.
Gering will open with four of their first five games on the road, including opening night at Torrington on the 27th. The Buldogs will play their home opener in week three against Hastings.
You can listen to Scottsbluff throughout the season on 106.9 The Trail (KHYYfm.com) while the Gering games will be on KMOR 93.3 FM (KMORfm.com) and we’ll have plenty of Friday night football coverage for both schools on KNEB.tv.
