Merced College football hopes to establish ground game in opener

The opening game of the community college football season tends to be a crapshoot.

With the elimination of scrimmages a few years back, teams no longer have game film with which to form a plan of attack. Throw in heavy personnel and even coaching turnover from year to year, and coaches can’t even scheme around tendencies from the previous season.

It’s a test of a coaching staff’s ability to adjust on the fly, and a test of wills to see which team can best impose what it wants to do on the other.

In the case of Merced College, it’s pounding the ball on the ground. With a freshman quarterback set to make his debut on the road, Blue Devils coach Bob Casey would like nothing more than for the ground game to make his afternoon as easy as possible.

Merced opens the season Saturday at Los Medanos in Pittsburg. Kickoff is set for 1 p.m.

“We have experience on the offensive line. We have good running backs. We should be able to go out and move the ball on them,” Blue Devils center Ty Allen said. “We’re real comfortable as a unit, and we have expectations to go undefeated and play in a bowl game.

“This game should give us an idea of how far we’ve come and what we still have to work on.”

Merced was fifth in the state last season, rushing for 228 yards per game. The Blue Devils have three members of that offensive line back, led by Allen and offensive tackle Xzavier McAllister. Merced also returns three sophomore backs, including 1,145-yard rusher Josh Stevens.

“You always want to run the ball and stop the run,” Casey said. “If we can run well, does it make everything easier for us? Yes. But we have playmakers all over the field. We’re going to take advantage of whatever Los Medanos gives us and get the ball in those guys’ hands.”

Before Merced concerns itself with an undefeated run, it has to get past the initial hurdle. That’s been easier said than done with the Blue Devils dropping eight of their last nine season openers.

Los Medanos won last season’s matchup 19-16 at Stadium ’76. Merced took control with a dominant third quarter, but the offense went stagnant in the fourth. The Mustangs finally took advantage, scoring the winning touchdown with just over five minutes to play.

“With so many new faces out there, I think one of the toughest adjustments from high school to college is playing 15-minute quarters instead of 12,” Casey said. “It’s basically a whole ’nother quarter. Guys get to the point where they’d be finishing up in high school and there’s still 12 minutes left.

“I think talent-wise, we like where we’re at going into this game. But no matter how you slice it, whoever makes the most plays comes out on top. If you block, if you tackle and if you execute your kicking game, you’re going to have a good chance to win.”

This story was originally published September 2, 2015 at 8:16 PM with the headline "Merced College football hopes to establish ground game in opener."