MC offense looking for bounce back on the road

The Merced College football team’s offense knows it must be better.

After two relatively easy weeks against less talented opponents, the Blue Devils were stymied in a 20-7 loss to Shasta a week ago. MC recorded just 207 total yards, went 1 for 13 on third down, 0 for 2 on fourth down, had a made field goal blocked thanks to a delay of game penalty and turned the ball over five times.

As good as the Knights were defensively, a good portion of the damage was self inflicted. The Blue Devils killed a number of promising drives with bad reads from quarterback Andrew Trahan, botched plays, untimely penalties and a lack of ball security. Even if Merced failed to piece together a sustained drive or two, a dominating defense and excellent special teams would have likely won out if it had simply taken care of the ball.

It’s forced Bob Casey’s squad to refocus as it prepares for a long road trip to Coalinga tonight for the Blue Devils’ Golden Coast Conference opener with West Hills. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. at Coalinga High.

“It was a lot of missed reads and mistakes we’ve got to clean up heading into (tonight),” sophomore wide receiver Nih-jer Jackson said. “We have to fix the little things and keep being productive offensively. At times I felt real confident on offense. We were moving the ball, driving and getting what we wanted, and then we just had drive killers, mental mistakes or bad reads or blown assignments. Those are things we have to clean up if we want to have a big season.”

Frustrating as the Shasta loss was, there were plenty of positives to take away from it. The score was tied 7-7 going into the fourth quarter, with turnovers setting up both of the Knights’ fourth-quarter scores. If the early returns are to be believed, Shasta was the toughest game remaining on MC’s schedule, presenting an excellent opportunity to run the table and – at the very least – produce the team’s first winning campaign since 1998.

Casey isn’t about to start daydreaming that far down the road, however. His sole focus is trying to knock off the two-time defending conference champs on the road and opening league play with a win.

“Last week was a very winnable game if we’re just a little smarter,” Casey said. “We were careless with the ball at the wrong times and just didn’t execute when the opportunities were there. We had chances to just keep drives alive and move the chains, but guys got caught up in going for the big play and Shasta made us pay.

“It’s frustrating, but there’s nothing we can do about it now. We have to put it behind us and turn our full attention to West Hills. The only concern right now is starting 1-0 in league.”

MC will try to do just that against a Falcons squad that has struggled out of the gate. West Hills (1-2) was hammered by Shasta 38-7 to start the season and followed it up with a 27-22 loss to Los Medanos. The Falcons got on the right side of the ledger last week, but needed a 28-point fourth quarter against a winless Yuba team to do it.

Freshman running back Kimuani Johnson has been the Falcons’ best offensive player to this point, averaging 6.1 yards per carry and a team-high three touchdowns. The secondary has been routinely picked, yielding 230 yards per game and nine touchdowns to just one interception in three games.

“West Hills probably isn’t quite what they’ve been the last few years, but they’re still big and physical,” Casey said. “They still haven’t found an offensive rhythm yet, but they finished the Yuba game with a pretty good quarter that you know they’ll be trying to build on. After last week’s performance, we can’t be taking anything for granted.

“Our defense and special teams are good enough that we should be in any game. What adjustments our offense makes and how they respond to last week’s adversity is going to say a lot about how the rest of our season goes.”

This story was originally published September 23, 2016 at 3:08 PM with the headline "MC offense looking for bounce back on the road."