Apaches to take on ‘Triple-I’ offense

GONZALES — The Gonzales Apaches started off district with a loss against La Grange but have hopefully corrected their mistakes this week to grab their first district win of the season.

Tonight, they host the Columbus Cardinals, a team with a head coach that’s implementing different looks on their offense.

“They have two personalities,” Apaches’ head coach Kodi Crane explained. “They have a new coach this year. Last year’s coach won a state championship at La Grange in 2000 running the Triple I. We’ve scrimmaged them for two years and they were in the Triple I. This new coach is from spread. So I feel like that he’s trying to balance what the kids know in the Triple I with what he wants to do and move into the future which is the spread. They are a 74% run team overall.”

Last week, the Cardinals lost 21-16 to Caldwell. Columbus had 210 yards on the ground with no yards passing.

Top athletes for Columbus include running backs Adrian Farro and Keandre Hurd. #1 Colson Geisler is a kid who was hurt earlier in the year but has returned back to the field.

“They were in [Triple-I] 43 out of the 63 plays [last game],” Crane said, “so that’s a big part of their offense.”

The Cardinals want to hold on to the ball and milk the clock as much as possible. They aren’t afraid to go for it on fourth down as well. In order to stop that, Crane believes his team has to win the third- down battle as well as tackle better.

“That’s one thing we did not do well enough last week is win third down,” he said. “We win third down, now it gets them off the field.”

The Apaches keyed in on tackling all week with drills designed to help their footwork.

“We do a lot of what we call ‘form tackling’ making sure your head is right, making sure your hips come through the tackle and I guess it’s been a more emphasis of once that contact is made we got to bring our feet with everything. So it’s emphasis on feet.”

Defensively the Cardinals run an odd-man front, sometimes showing a “50” look which involves putting down a nose guard and covering the center. They’ll bring multiple pressures and mix up man and zone with their coverage.

The key for the Apaches’ offense will be consistency and taking advantage of their opportunities.

“There’s a potential, very similar to last week, where they get the ball and our offense will be on the sideline for a while,” Crane explained, “so whenever we get that opportunity [on offense] we’ve got to get the ball in the end zone, get points on the board.”

Tonight’s game is at home at Apache Field with kickoff set for 7:30 p.m.