In the Yellow Jackets’ victory last week, Howard Payne (1-0, 1-0) generated 610 yards of total offense with no turnovers, while allowing 486 yards with no takeaways.
HPU second-year head coach Jason Bachtel said of the performance, “Going back to last week, I thought the offensive production, for not knowing what we were truly going to see, was outstanding. I’m never going to turn down 59 points, but at the same time I don’t want us to peak too soon. We’re staying on guys, and not in a bad way, but to let them know that’s not an every-game deal.
“Defensively, the first game woes we had talked about came out. We had 19 missed tackles, and some missed assignments and misalignments ended up costing us. Those are all concerns, but they’re fixable concerns. We had some undisciplined penalties which are also correctable, and the things we talked about with adversity and poise, we saw all that. Some kids had the poise in adversity, some didn’t.”
George Fox (1-0, 0-0) is coming off a 38-31 come-from-behind victory over Redlands this past Saturday.
“They’re big, they’re going to truly look like a Division I football team against us,” Bachtel said of George Fox. “I do think our speed may be a little bit better than what the Redlands was, but not by much. They were down 14 and came back and rallied. Redlands had a chance right before half to score again and made an errant throw for an interception and that changed the momentum and you saw the whole sideline change.
“Defensively, they don’t give up many big plays and they’re very disciplined. They’re going to give us multiple fronts that could cause trouble with our front guys if we don’t handle it, and they like to blitz to put pressure on you. We’re going to have to get in the rhythm of the ballgame and see how they’re wanting to play us.”
The Bruins finished with 399 total yards – 289 passing and 110 rushing – with one interception and one fumble lost last week.
Quarterback Haiden Schaan completed 17 of 29 for 289 yards with four touchdowns and one pick, while rushing for a team-high 76 yards and another score. Meanwhile, Leon Johnson III led the receiving corps with four catches for 174 yards and three trips to the end zone.
“Their receiver is 6-foot-4 or 6-5 so he’s going to be a towering threat over our DBs,” Bachtel said. “The receiver, he reminds me of the Jordan kid at Mary Hardin-Baylor – tall, lengthy, a lot of height and they can just throw the ball up and let him go get it. They’re a big sprint out team, we just have to maintain our sprint out integrity.
“Their quarterback accounted for all but 40 of their yards, so he’s a player. Being able to control him is the biggest key. If you can control him, you control a little bit of the pass game and the receiver. We have to find ways to get pressure on the quarterback this week. We had a few hurries last week but no sacks, so we need to get some sacks this week. We also have to contain him in the run game.”
The Yellow Jackets yielded 275 passing yards and 211 rushing yards last week with no sacks or takeaways.
Leading tacklers were Jarett Brown with 10 and one for loss, Kyle Bell with nine and a pass break up, Peyton Lowe and Jaden Elie with seven apiece, Jessie Paris with six, and Aaron Alderete, Jaylen Roberson and Brayden Rhea with five takedowns each.
“I think that the No. 1 key that I want to see early is the tacking, alignment and secondary play,” Bachtel said. “The elephant is the room is we can’t keep giving up 45 points and expect to win a lot of games.”
George Fox’s defense gave up 382 yards – 234 passing and 148 rushing – to Redlands last week, but recorded five sacks and three takeaways, including two interceptions.
Standouts were Austin Canchola (seven tackles, one sack), Kiegan Schaan (seven tackles, one sack, one fumble recovery), Jaron Marks (seven tackles), Kross Knoll (six tackles, 1.5 for loss), Cooper Rogien (two sacks), Chris McCoy (interception) and Kobe Andrews (interception).
“They’re big, they’re going to truly look like a Division I football team against us,” Bachtel said. “I do think our speed may be a little bit better than what the Redlands was, but not by much. Offensively, we need to see if we’re going to be able to control the front and can we control the blitz packages they throw at us?”
Landon McKinney, who led all Texas college quarterbacks in passing yards with 496 last week, completed 20 of 33 passes with four scoring tosses and no interceptions. Eleven Yellow Jackets caught at least one pass including Hunter Cheek with three grabs for 157 yards and two touchdowns, Jordan Carroll with two receptions for 108 yards and a trip to the end zone, and Otis Lanier pulled down four catches for 32 yards and scored once.
The Yellow Jackets finished with 114 yards on the ground as Javian Myles rushed for a team-best 50 yards and a touchdown, Stephen Willis chipped in 34 yards and reached the end zone once, and Tauren Bradley contributed 33 yards and crossed the goal line.
“I’m not a 50-50 guy, I’m a whatever it takes to win guy,” Bachtel said. “We felt like our offensive skill was better than their defensive skill, so we felt like we were going to be able to attack them through the air. We have a bunch of guys in our offensive skill that are dynamic. Whatever it takes to win is what we’re going to do, and we felt like we would be better in the pass game than the run, not that we didn’t have a good run game, but we do want to be better there.”
Special teams could again play a huge role in the game, as HPU’s Lanier returned a punt 77 yards for a touchdown against Texas Lutheran to earn ASC Special Teams Player of the Week honors.
“Whenever you block a kick or return a kick, your odds of winning go up drastically,” Bachtel said. “We were able to return the punt last week and that was huge, and a momentum shifter.”