Banged-up Blue Devils looking to end losing skid

When you’re a football program that hadn’t turned in a winning campaign in 19 years, little tends to come easy.

Merced College coach Bob Casey knows it all too well. The bye week is usually an opportunity for a football team to regroup, heal up and prepare for a stretch run. Little is ever that simple for the Blue Devils, however.

A tweak of a knee playing basketball here, a sliced hand while doing dishes there and, all of a sudden, MC heads into today’s showdown at Hartnell more banged up than it was two weeks ago. To add insult to injury, the bulk of the damage has come in the last three days, leaving little time to fill in the blanks. Kickoff is set for 6 p.m. in Salinas.

“It’s kind of the nature of junior college football,” Casey said. “We’re probably feeling it a little more than in years past, because we had to turn a lot of guys away due to the housing crisis. But if you look around, everyone has pretty thin numbers this year. There’s no point in complaining about it, we just have to have the next guy up mentality and hope that guys respond to the opportunity of getting out there on the field.”

Life is not without it’s cruel ironies.

The remainder of the Blue Devil (2-3, 0-2 Golden Coast Conference) schedule shapes up quite favorably. Hartnell (4-1, 2-0 GCC) is the last team on the schedule with a winning record and the last four, Reedley, Gavilan, Yuba and Cabrillo (four total wins) have been quite bad. Any other year and it would almost be a guarantee that Merced end it’s losing-season streak, but with Casey running out of healthy bodies, who knows what the rest of the campaign will look like.

“It’s been a rough week with injuries, but it is what it is,” freshman defensive back Brandon Williams said. “We still have guys that can make plays, and other guys are going to get the chance to step up and show what they can do. We know we have a chance to finish strong, but we need a win to get some confidence going.

“I truly believe if we can stop the run, Hartnell is going to have a tough time throwing on us.”

That’s a task easier said than done. The Panthers boast the state’s top rusher in redshirt sophomore Sherrod Hawkes (594 yards, 6 touchdowns). MC limited him to just 97 rushing yards in a win in Salinas two years ago when Hawkes was a freshman.

“Hawkes is a tremendous running back, probably the best we’re going to see all season,” Casey said. “They’ve had pretty good offensive balance and have found a way to win a number of close ballgames. That tends to come with being successful. When you win games, you have a different mentality and belief that you’re going to come out on top in those close games.”

The Blue Devils will hope to counter with a formidable running game of their own. MC is set to have its projected starting offensive line for the first time since Week 3 with center Cisco Herrera returning to the lineup.

Merced has only cracked the 100-yard rushing threshold as a team three times on the season, two of those coming the first two weeks with Herrera in the lineup. It averaged 192 rushing yards per game during that span.

“Obviously we want to run the ball, but we know we’re going to need balance to be successful,” Casey said. “They like to stuff the box and challenge teams to beat them in other ways. We’re going to have to execute when those opportunities present themselves.

“We’re going to have to stay patient and just try and make sure we don’t leave out defense on the field too long. Defense and special teams have been our strength. They’re going to keep us in the game. We just need a little more consistency from the offense and we’ll start winning games again.”

This story was originally published October 14, 2016 at 2:34 PM with the headline "Banged-up Blue Devils looking to end losing skid."