A Thursday game on the road, starting at 7 p.m., and played on a turf field are all new challenges the 2023 Lampasas Badger football team has not faced – until this week.
At 3-0, the Badgers have had their best start to a season since 2020. Their home wins came over Elgin, Northeast Early College High School and Georgetown East View. Two of those three wins were against Conference 5A schools, and they will play a third 5A school tomorrow night when they meet Pflugerville Connally.
Lampasas Head Coach Troy Rogers has been pleased with how his team approached this unique week.
“I think with the short week you just have to adjust, and you just have to really fine-tune your practice schedule and make sure you understand that we’re still going to get after it Wednesday during the athletic period,” he said.
“We’re going to kind of do our after-school practice during the athletic period and trim out our after-school stuff on Wednesday. We want to keep them fresh,” Rogers said earlier this week. “You still need to get your work done and feel good about your preparation for Thursday.
“I feel like the practice schedule plan has been good,” he said. “We’re going to get all the things that we need in just by tweaking some things here and there … It will all work out, and then at the end of the day you’re going to get an extra day of rest before the next game, so I think overall it’s good.”
The Cougars are 2-1 this season, with wins over Marble Falls (by a score of 40-14) and Austin McCallum (at 56-42). They lost to Lockhart 38-21.
The Cougars have played high-scoring games in all their contests so far, and they have showcased an explosive offense.
“Well, if you look at them on film, they’re very athletic, very, very fast,” Rogers said. “They’ve got a new coach in there. Coach Burton just got in there in the spring, so they were 0-10 last year, but they’ve got nine starters back on offense, and nine starters back on defense.
“They’ve got a new coach coming in that has confidence and has put in some new schemes,” Rogers continued. “They’re flying around, and if you miss a tackle on one of these guys, they can take it the distance. To me, it’s a great opportunity to play a team that can scorch you in a hurry.
“Defensively, they’ve got some guys that can fly around,” he said. “They play some man coverage. Not a big blitz team, but they’ve got some guys that get after it.
“I think it’s a great opportunity to play a very talented team that’s playing with a lot of confidence … I think we’re going to get their best shot,” Rogers said.
The Badgers are coming off a week in which they scored 72 points and connected on several big plays.
“I think you attribute it to the players making plays and doing their job, that’s the big thing,” Rogers said of the Badgers’ success last week against East View. “You don’t have your run game executed like the run game was executed or the passing game executed like the passing game was executed if guys aren’t all doing their job. I think it was nice to see that.
“I think the coaches did a great job getting those guys ready to go and prepared,” he added. “I think our fanbase, when you get to play at home with the crowd that we had, I think all those things come into play when it comes down to what you see on the field. And like I said, most importantly I think our guys are locked in … I think our guys understand what’s really important.”
With last week’s success came an individual accolade for Badger quarterback Reed Jerome, who was named David Smoak’s Central Texas Quarterback of the Week after going 22-29 for 293 yards and four touchdowns through the air. Jerome also rushed for 100 yards and had two more scores on the ground.
The junior will lead the Badgers once again for the 7 p.m. kickoff Thursday at The Pfield in Pflugerville, located at 1440 W. Pecan St.
