GRIDIRON GLANCE ’24: Bangs Dragons

August 24, 2024 at 3:59 pm Derrick Stuckly

BANGS – For the third consecutive football season, the Bangs Dragons are beginning their third campaign with a different leader, as Colton Buzzard makes his head coaching debut and looks to turn around the fortunes of a program that posted a 2-8 record in 2023.

Buzzard, a 2009 Coleman graduate, spent nine years as an assistant at San Angelo Central and then Gregory-Portland. Prior to leading the Dragons into their first scrimmage of the preseason earlier this month, Buzzard said his experienced a sensation he never had before as a player – butterflies in his stomach.

“If you don’t have them I don’t know why you’re in this profession,” said Buzzard. “This is the closest you can get to playing. I’m more nervous now than when I did play, but it’s a great feeling. The excitement’s here, the energy level’s high. I’m excited, the coaching staff is excited and the kids are ready to go play one that matters.”

The Dragons return six offensive and six defense starters from last year’s squad, as Bangs ins shifting to the wing-T offense and a 4-2-5 defense. In two preseason scrimmages against Valley Mills and Goldthwaite, the development of both units has been among the biggest bright spots.

“Offensively, I wanted to see our ability to execute on our base plays,” Buzzard said. “ In a scrimmage you have a script you want to run through to see everything you’ve been working on. You don’t want to get stuck running one play and try and win the scrimmage by points, you want to execute everything you want to see. I feel like our ability to run the plays we wanted to run and run them effectively has been a big positive.

“Defensively, our physicality was one of the question marks coming into the scrimmages. How physical were we going to be? The kids lived up to our expectation. We’ve had some alignment busts that hurt with some coverages. Teams went into some some motions and things we really haven’t talked a lot about. But it was really good for us to see that and some different formations than what we’ve worked on.”

As for the offense, players who will be manning the offensive line include Damian Hudspeth, Hayden Bush, Kason Klutz, Roy Duron, Kian Kelly and Bryce Schoen, among others.

“We have a lot of linemen, over 10 we can use, and that’s the good thing about this offense when you’re running the football and being physical, you can get a rotation and keep fresh legs,” Buzzard said. “We had some missteps in the scrimmages but we can fix that because the physicality was there.”

The skill players are led by quarterback Skylar Minshew, Brayden Gatlin and Nevaeh Menefied at fullback, and Aden Jones, Jackson Edmiston, and Eliseo Rivas at tailback.

“Skylar is one of best kids I’ve been around and we have a lot of high expectations for him at quarterback,” Buzzard said. “Brayden and Nevaeh at fullback are two big guys that are hard to tackle. We also have a good rotation of running backs in Aden, Jackson and Eliseo. Any of those five guys I mentioned can break one and go for a long run. All five all very physical out of the backfield and not afraid to block for one another.”

Connor Bible, Hunter Withers, and Cason Tidwell are among those expected to see time at the receiver positions, while Buzzard also spoke highly of tight ends Noah Castillo and Hunter Crowell, and their abilities to contribute both in blocking and the pass game.

“Our tight ends are the unsung heroes in this offense,” Buzzard said.

On the defensive side of the ball, the line currently consists of Kelly, Castillo and Gatlin rotating at the ends, with Menefield, Bush, Chris Valdez and John Paul Rangel in a rotation at the tackle spots.

Crowell, Rivas and Tidwell have stepped up their play at linebacker, according to Buzzard.

“Hunter has taken control at our Mike linebacker and he’s one of the guys that led the team in tackles last year,” Buzzard said. “His nose for the football is good, he’s smart and gets us lined up. Eliseo will be our Sam back, a very physical guy that flies down field. And Cason is more of a hybrid strong safety/linebacker type.”

Tidwell, Withers, Jones and Bible will be among those getting time in the back end in the secondary.

After recording just two wins a year ago, the Dragons will be looking to establish early momentum as they tangle with Early, Merkel, Grape Creek, Abilene TLCA, and Colorado City during the pre-district campaign.

“Wins are obviously great, but we just need to get better as a team,” Buzzard said. “Our opponent across the field, yeah we want to beat them, but we have to keep growing as a team to get ready for the part of the season that matters and that’s district play. Right now we’re just focusing on Early.”

District 5-2A Division I dropped from eight to six teams for the next two years, as along with Bangs, Coleman, De Leon and Hamilton remain. New faces to the league include Hico and Ballinger.

Dave Campbell’s Texas Football expects a learning curve for the Dragons in 2024 as they’re tabbed to finish behind Coleman, De Leon, Hamilton, Hico and Ballinger.

On paper, the Dragons’ district schedule should gradually get tougher each week starting at home against Ballinger and Hico, then at Hamilton, back home for De Leon and at Coleman. The top four teams will advance to the postseason, which Bangs last did just two years ago in 2022.

As for what it will take for Bangs to make a postseason push, Buzzard said, “We just have to win to be blunt. We hope to carry over some momentum into district. Mindset is a big thing right now for our kids and the community. We want to win as many games as we can to create the kind of culture and mentality in these boys’ heads that will be very vital to winning games in district for us.”

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BANGS DRAGONS 2024 SCHEDULE

Aug. 30	Early	7:30 p.m.
Sept. 6	Merkel	7 p.m.
Sept. 13	at Grape Creek	7 p.m.
Sept. 20	at Abilene TLCA	7 p.m.
Sept. 27	Colorado City#	7 p.m.
Oct. 4	OPEN
Oct. 11	Ballinger*	7 p.m.
Oct. 18	Hico*	7 p.m.
Oct. 25	at Hamilton*	7 p.m.
Nov. 1	De Leon*	7 p.m.
Nov. 8	at Coleman*	7 p.m.