Thursday Night Lights for Bowdon Jordan Hofeditz/Times-Georgian | Posted: Tuesday, September 10, 2013 11:59 pm Even two games into the season, Dwight Hochstetler isn’t entirely sure of what he’s got. Through two games the Bowdon High School football team has won both contests by a combined 114-26 score with most touchdowns coming on short drives, including several one-play drives with long runs. That is either a sign of a potent offense or one that hasn’t been challenged yet this season. That challenge comes this week in the form of Kendrick (1-1) on a rare Thursday night game for the Red Devils (2-0) in Columbus at 7 p.m. in Memorial Stadium. “We’re anxious to see where we’re at right now. We had two surprisingly easy games. We had seven one-play drives and I can’t ever remember having that many one-play drives in a season. Last week we had 89, 85, 79-yard runs,” the Bowdon coach said. “We know Kendrick’s got a majority of their defense back and they played super defense last year.” The defense is the strength of a Cherokee team that took a big step in 2012. The 5-5 regular-season finish was the first at .500 or above for Kendrick since back-to-back 5-5 finished in 2000 and 2001, but the first playoff appearance since 1999. The fourth-place finish last year followed three straight 1-9 seasons and a 2-8 season in 2011. Last year the Kendrick defense allowed just under 20 points per game, picking up a shutout and held opponents to single-digit scoring three other times during the regular season. This year, they might be even better. “They’ve got both linebackers back and are big up front. Their secondary runs well to the ball and they’ll strike you. We had almost 300 yards on 13 carries before half [last week], it may take us all game and maybe 40-plus carries to get that many yards this week,” Hochstetler said. Offensively, it is still a physical mentality, but one that doesn’t have the quick score ability of the Red Devils. The Cherokees just try to ground out yards with short runs up the middle. While Bowdon doesn’t have the personnel to replicate that in practice, it did get a test run against that style of offense last week. “Offensively, they’re Wishbone and they’ll break it every once in a while and get in what we call a Wingbone. I’d say 80 percent of their plays are between tackles. They just line up and run that iso and power at you. They line up and say, ‘Here we come. Stop up,’” Hochstetler said. “Haralson County ran a lot of us at that, ran a lot of plays off tackle. Last week it took a drive or two for us to adjust to what Haralson was doing, we can simulate that in practice ... It’s going to take us a series or two to get up to that level, but hopefully it won’t take us that long this week.” The defense was a bright spot for Bowdon last week, settling into what the Haralson County offense was trying to attack them with. The defensive side of the ball was one of the question marks for the Red Devils coming into the season, but so far have shown to be up to the task. “I was real pleased last week with how our defense, if we see two tight [ends] or what have you, adjusting to alignments and formations. I thought our defense did a tremendous job last week doing that. They weren’t out of position or panic or what have you. Defensively, we line up where we’re supposed to. We just have some younger kids that don’t play with the best technique, but we’re getting there,” Hochstetler said. When the Red Devils play on Thursday it will be the first Thursday game since the season opener of 2003 when they hosted Clay County, Ala., and lost 20-14. This will be a different experience because the team has gotten in a rhythm for Friday night games and now has to make an adjustment. The last time Bowdon played on a Thursday in the middle of the season was in 1977 in a 20-0 win at Model. That was the season before Hochstetler began his Georgia coaching career at Greenville. The biggest change is that it combines the usual Wednesday and Thursday practice while making Monday and Tuesday a little bit longer. “Monday for us, usually, is a day where we try to correct mistakes we made the previous ball game and put in our game plan. [Monday] was a long day ... We was out there a little longer than what we normally do,” Hochstetler said. “[Tuesday] is going to be long, too, and it’s going to be physical. Hopefully, it won’t effect us mentally.” As long as his team doesn’t get overconfident, Hochstetler believes it should be able to open region play with a win. After two big wins, the coaching staff is making sure the Red Devils know wins aren’t automatic and against a team that made the postseason last year, they can’t take anything for granted. “We’ve got to go down there and play at Memorial Stadium, it’s going to be a challenge. Hopefully our kids don’t take them lightly. We’ve had these two weeks and sometimes that will effect you mentally. We’ve been preaching and preaching, so hopefully it won’t,” Hochstetler said. “We’re playing a playoff school from last year and I would say they’re a better ball club than they were last year.”
Posted on: Wed, 11 Sep 2013 09:46:50 +0000
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