STORY BY: KEITH KANE
-BRYAN- After six straight losses dating back to last season, including last Friday night’s 34-7 loss to state ranked Waco Midway, Coach Ross Rogers says the quicker the Bryan Vikings pick up a win the better off they’ll be heading into District 14-5A play.
Rogers says the main problems against Midway were conditioning and depth. The Vikings played step-for-step with the Panthers through the first quarter-and-a-half before fatigue set in and along with it came the mental mistakes. With a much larger roster, Midway was able to keep fresh players on the field while the Vikings’ ranks were already diminished due to illness and injury.
Rogers says the main things the Vikings worked on in practice this week was proper execution of plays to cut down on the number of three-and-out series and punch the football into the end zone more often. Rogers also says he restructured the practices to include more time at the end for conditioning drills.
For the game with Magnolia, Rogers is making some changes in the offensive and defensive line and to the linebacker positions. The offensive skill positions and defensive backfield will remain basically untouched, even though Rogers says he expects those player to perform better this week.
Rogers says the Bulldogs are in a bit of a transition. In the past, they’ve run more of a wishbone or power offense. And, they will still run the power plays, but from a spread offense. He also says they are passing the ball much more than in the past.
When asked if Magnolia has the speed and depth of the Midway team, Rogers says he doesn’t think so, but he’s not using that fact to motivate the Vikings because Magnolia still has some talented players that can match up well against Bryan.
Defensively, the Bulldogs are much like Waco Midway in that they will force the running game instead of sitting back and reading the plays. Rogers points out that last week, Magnolia gave up some big plays but was able to keep Galena Park out of the end zone in a 14 to 11 season opening win.
Rogers says this week the Vikings must block better at the point of attack and get the ball into the hands of Bobby Johnson and V-J Banks more often.
The game between the Bryan Vikings and Magnolia Bulldogs kicks off Friday night at 7:30 pm. You can hear a broadcast of the game beginning at 7 pm on 1150 The Zone and at www.brazosfootball.com.