Traditionally, the Chase County football coaches give out helmet stickers as a reward for good play. Three weeks into the 2011 season, Bulldogs coach Derick Budke has yet to issue a single one.
Not that he hasn’t had reason to give them out. Chase County is 3-0 to start the season, including two wins that came in dramatic fashion. But Budke has decided it’s too early to put any decoration on helmets.
“It’s a nice start,” Budke said. “But that’s exactly what it is. It’s three games that we’ve done some good things in. We’ve done plenty of things that we need to get better at.”
Two of the wins have been in games decided by one possession. The Bulldogs are coming off a 13-12 win against Washington County in which an Aaron Johnson touchdown and Troy Higgs extra point =gave them a one-point lead in the third quarter. They held onto it the rest of the way, shutting out Washington County in the second half to preserve the win.
In the first week of the season, a touchdown pass on fourth down from Tanner Line to Garrett Osgood propelled Chase County to a 26-19 win over Council Grove.
“Last year we probably would have just lost and gave up,” Johnson said of playing in close games. “But like being down 12-0 against Washington to come back, we just got ourselves together and pulled it out.”
The Bulldogs went 1-8 last season with a very similar roster to the one they have this season. The consensus is that while the 2010 roster was similar, the 2011 squad is a different team.
“We just weren’t very experienced, we were all younger, thrown out there varsity, not much experience,” Johnson said. “It was hard.”
Offensively, Johnson, a tailback, has led the Bulldogs in rushing, with 372 yards rushing over the first three games. Fullback Thomas Kirk has rushed for 221 yards. Line has thrown for 261 yards, consistently throwing for 85-90 yards a game.
Defensively, the Bulldogs have yet to allow an opponent to score 20 points. Opponents have scored a combined 37 points in the first three games.
“You can judge how good your defensive night is going to be pretty early in the game,” Budke said. “If you have two or three guys around the football, it might be a long night for you. When we play well, we’ve got five, six, seven guys around the football flying to the ball. And we’ve seen more of that this year than certainly we did a year ago. And that’s really the secret to it.”
Chase County will travel to play West Franklin this week in hopes of improving to 4-0. As far as the future, the Bulldogs mostly speak of the West Franklin game, though there is occasional mention of making the postseason after the remaining six regular season games.
“There will be more than six more,” Line said.