Bulldogs show ‘consistency’ in Wimberley scrimmage
Burnet senior running back Eric Walker gets away from a Wimberley tackler in finding a running lane. Staff photo by Jennifer Fierro
JENNIFER FIERRO • PICAYUNE STAFF
BURNET — The Burnet High School football team set the tone early during its scrimmage against Wimberley on Aug. 21.
The Bulldogs scored a touchdown within the first 10 plays of the event after the defense kept the Texans scoreless for about 20 plays. In the end Burnet scored five touchdowns and gave up only one when reserves took over during the controlled portion of the scrimmage.
But neither team scored in the live 12-minute quarter.
Head coach Kurt Jones said he saw the consistency he wanted on both sides of the ball.
“It wasn’t perfect by any means,” he said. “We saw a lot of good stuff.”
Offensively, coaches wanted to see more than an understanding of the playbook, he said. They wanted the Bulldogs to go at a faster pace, to quickly line up for a play, and to know within seconds their blocking and route assignments.
To Jones, one of the reasons why the Bulldogs scored was because the playbook knowledge is second nature, though he said coaches stuck to the base offense and defense deliberately.
“I think you want to score when you get the ball, and we had the chance to do that,” the coach said. “The tempo for the most part was pretty good.”
Defensively, Burnet was solid. While the Texans were able to get past the 50-yard line and ventured into the red zone, they were only able to score once. A swarming group of Bulldogs were constantly near the ball. And any time Wimberley ran a play for positive yards, Burnet countered with a play that pushed the Texans back.
In the two scrimmages, including last week’s affair at Llano, the Burnet starting defense has yet to give up a score.
“We’d love to go pitch shutouts,” Jones said. “It’s hard to be a championship team if you don’t go play defense. I’d go ahead and say it’s impossible. We feel like we have a defense moving in the right direction.”
Overall, Jones said the Bulldogs saw plenty of positives, noting winning teams perform well on offense, defense and special teams. And they look forward to the start of the regular season, he said. Burnet will be at Marble Falls for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff Aug. 29 at Mustang Stadium, 2101 Mustang Drive.
jfierro@thepicayune.com