Apaches face road tilt against speedy Cougars

The Gonzales Apaches (0-1) have their first road game of the season this Friday where they travel to take on the speedy Austin Crockett Cougars (0-1).

Looking at last week’s tape against Navarro, Waldie was impressed with his defense and believed that the offense can be improved on from that 17-16 loss.

“Offensively, everything is fixable,” he said. “It’s timing, pre-snap reads, it’s eyes up when you’re pulling, it’s splits, it’s missed signals from the sidelines on 3^rd-and-8. We called a play and ran the wrong play. So the good news is, I didn’t feel like I was sitting there watching film saying, ‘man this kid is fired, this kid is fired, this kid is fired.’ That happens a lot in Week 2, to be honest with you, you have a lot of adjustments. But we don’t have a lot of depth chart adjustments. We’ve got some people that need to get better, but we kind of knew that going in, and we got some people that need some experience, and we knew that going in. So the sun came up Saturday morning and we went back to work.”

This week, the Apaches defense will face off against a Cougars team that runs a spread offense.

“Majority tight end, three-receiver, one-back set stuff, pro-spread stuff,” Waldie scouted. “Lefty quarterback, big tight end, two big running backs. I think their skill is their strength.”

The key matchup for the Apaches will be at the line of scrimmage where their defensive front will have to wreak havoc against the Cougars’ offensive line.

“They’ve got some talented freaks on that offense,” Waldie added. “Coach [John] Waugh does a good job. He’s a good man. He and I have had some good talks. We want to keep this game going, 57 miles apart. It’s hard to find good local games and people sometimes think, oh Austin, but it’s closer than three of our district opponents.”

Defensively, the Cougars run an even front, to what Waldie described as a “split cover three” team. The strength for Austin Crocket is their front seven, but the Apaches are more concerned with improving their offense instead of scheming against the Cougars’ defense.

“This week on offense we’re seriously just trying to fix ourselves,” Waldie said. “They just happened to be somebody we get to practice against, one of five practices. I know people don’t want to hear that but that’s my philosophy, it’s never going to change. I hope we go on a four-game win streak, don’t get me wrong. I’m a competitor, I hated losing the other night. But I got five weeks to get this right as the head football coach. This is step two of that process.”

Kickoff is scheduled at 7:30 p.m.