The Bobcat football team hits the road for the first time this season, facing off with Sturgis.
Kickoff for Friday’s game is set for 7 p.m. CT at Woodle Field.
“Sturgis has some pretty good athletes,” said BHS coach Lee Schmidt. “They run a lot of misdirection offense; a lot of counter trey; some sweep game; they threw the ball about 14 times against St. Thomas More. (On defense) they play a 3-4; play a lot of Cover 4.
“They’re just hungry for a win and we know we have to make that long road trip. It’s always a difficult thing to do – get off that bus and play with energy. So hopefully we can prepare our kids, do the right things and be ready to go when we get out there.”
Brookings is 2-0 after beating Huron 40-0 and Lennox 29-6. The Bobcats are one of two undefeated Class 11AA teams.
Sturgis fell 40-0 at Pierre (2-0) and 27-8 at Class 11B member St. Thomas More.
It’s 415 miles – or nearly a 6-hour drive – from Brookings High School to Woodle Field.
“We do break the trip up,” Schmidt noted. “We stop in Chamberlain and eat at about 11, and then we’ll actually let the kids walk the trail and do some different things just so they get out and stretch their legs – just so it doesn’t seem like a 6-hour trip.
“And then we’ll stop in Wasta at the rest stop and get out and spend a little time. That gives us just an hour to get to Sturgis. We want to make it as much like a home game – we show up to the stadium to play at 5 o’clock, so we want to show up to Sturgis at 5 o’clock or maybe a little bit before and get taped and get out to the field and really get a good warmup.
“The rest is up to the kids at that point. Right now, we just keep reminding them that the idea that the mental game – we want to be 1 or 2 percent better this week than we were last week. And we want to keep working on that. In a lot of ways, it’s just worrying about what we’re doing; it’s worrying how we’re doing it; and just keep focusing on things that we keep harping at our kids about the mental part – about how we practice, how we go about film work. You don’t treat it any different than any other week.
“We don’t really talk a whole lot about the trip, but the trip is something I’ve done a lot of times. And I just know that it does have an effect on your kids. But once your kids get their legs underneath them, usually they can play the way they normally would.”
Offense: “Keep doing what we’ve been doing”
“And that’s control time with the ball,” said Schmidt. “I think one of the big keys is just being a little bit more balanced – being able to throw the football a little bit more successfully. It’s not that we haven’t been successful, it’s just something that we need to keep improving on and keep improving on our reads. That’s something that will be a key for us is being able to move the ball, because they’re good enough defensively they’re not just going to let us do one thing. They might load the box, and we know teams are going to load the box the way we’ve been running it. So the key is to move the ball with some balance, especially throwing the ball.”
Five different Bobcats have a rushing touchdown, with Carter Eidem leading the way with three. Parker Rykhus has a rushing TD and a scoring reception.
Defense: Don’t give up big plays
“We probably gave up a few big plays, but we didn’t give up touchdowns (on big plays) last week or the week before,” noted Schmidt. “No big plays; make everybody earn it; stay solid with technique. So the key there is do our job on defense.”
