Coaches and their teams, regardless of the sport, have their routines and they don’t like to have them interrupted.
Pre-game meals in football, for example, may be scheduled for four hours prior to kickoff, not three hours and 50 minutes or four hours and 10 minutes, but four hours–period. Special teams and other groups take the field, sans pads, an hour prior to kickoff to warm up. Everyone back in the locker room 20 minutes before game time. You get the picture.
So, when the start of a game is delayed such as Bryan County’s with Johnson last Friday night—in this case a tad over two hours because of lightning---with no one allowed in the stadium the question is how do coaches and players deal with it.
It was not the sort of adversity a coach wants to see, especially for the opening game of the season, but for the Redskins it was just another blip on the radar, according to Coach Cherard Freeman and senior Zane Renteria.
Bryan County didn’t miss a beat as it was in control all the way in a 21-6 win over the visiting Atomsmashers.
About an hour prior to the start Freeman was outside the locker room checking the weather and giving a smile and a hand shake to anyone who happened to be in the area.
“Oh, we’re going to get the game in,” Freeman said. “The thing this delay is going to do is show us a lot about the type of football team we’ve got. This is another learning experience.
“It’ll let us know if we’ve got a team that can break their concentration and get back on track,” Freeman said. “It could be something good if it could help us down the road in a playoff game. Just see the focus of our kids, you know.”
Renteria, an all-region pick last year as an offensive guard and defensive end in addition to being one of the school’s top wrestlers, said the coaches and his fellow seniors did a great job in helping the players stay relaxed and get through the delay.
“Honestly, I just sat on my phone and took a 30-minute nap,” Renteria said when asked about what he did. “We’d had our pre-game meal at 3:30 but the coaches then ordered pizza and kept us full.
“We watched some television, sports highlights stuff on YouTube. One of the big things was we just stayed off our feet. I felt when the game did start, we were ready to play. We stayed relaxed and maintained our focus.”
Renteria, along with fellow senior Ger’bravion Collins, and junior Eli Koskela had 10 tackles each and he was one of the key blockers on an offensive line that allowed Redskins backs to run for 214 yards.
At 6-0, 210 pounds Renteria is in his fourth year of starting and is one of the players Freeman is counting on as a leader for a team dominated by underclassmen.
“This game definitely builds a lot of confidence for our freshmen,” Renteria said. “It shows what we’re capable of and shows us that our seniors are able to lead.
“Coming into this game we had talked about leadership and how last year’s seniors were not the best leaders and how we (seniors) needed to step up,” Renteria said. “We hadn’t really seen that in our two scrimmage games and the coaches were kind of scared but the seniors stepped up big time.”
Renteria and Co., will need to take it up a couple of notches this week when a high-powered Aquinas team comes to the town. The Irish are ranked No. 7 in the state in Class 3A-Private and are coming off a 51-35 win over a strong Athens Academy team.
Aquinas quarterback Turner Stevenson passed for 348 yards and six touchdowns, all-state wide receiver Jack Rhodes caught 10 passes for 228 yards and four scores while Elijah Hutchinson ran 21 times for 132 yards.