The motto for the Athens Bulldogs' senior class this year is: "Leave a mark."
In order to uphold this motto for the season, the team has a lot of work to do. The pressure is high after making program history two years ago and missing the playoffs for the first time in five years in 2015.
Though there are a quite a few players from the 2014 State runner-up team, the youth and inexperience of the Bulldogs is still settling in the back of the coach Ryan Adams’ head.
The first chance Athens will have at leaving a mark will be Friday in its season opener against Warren.
Young but talented
Treyce Albin hasn’t played a varsity down yet as a starting quarterback. With senior Brendan Sano switching from QB to defensive end for his last season, Albin was named started for 2016.
“It’s the kid's first time out here at 7:30 on a Friday night,” Adams said after a scrimmage earlier in the season about Albin. “I think that’s a difficult thing for any high school kid to step up and do.”
Albin said he is ready to redeem himself on Friday night. Albin said his inexperience showed in the jamboree scrimmage against Trimble last Friday. Though he wasn’t too impressed with his performance, he was an efficient dual-threat quarterback.
While he is still working on improving his pass game, his running game is building its foundation. In the first half of the scrimmage, Albin had over 50 rushing yards, including a 31-yard run on third-and-long.
Albin’s running threat is something to watch out for. Though he is still learning the position and what it means to play on Friday night, the learning curve for him isn’t as significant for him as it could be.
Bouncing back
Adams doesn’t feel much pressure to bounce back this season. His squad missed the post season a year ago after a 6-4 season.
“We’ve been doing the same thing that we’ve been doing here since 2007 in terms of preparing our kids to play football on Friday night,” he said. “A lot of times, the pressure, it’s on their backs.
“They’re the ones that need to step up and elevate their game.”
And where the game is going to need to be elevated is on the defense. Against Trimble, Athens struggled at times. Occasionally when Ryan Richards, Trimble quarterback, and Kameron Curry, Trimble running back, were able to elude Bulldog defenders. But throughout the second quarter, Athens managed to slow them down.
The Bulldogs pass defense wasn’t bad either. Minus a couple big gains, Athens defended Trimble's pass game.
Athens will have some work to do in terms of clogging the middle and slowing Warren on Friday night.
One Game at a Time
Coach Adams said the one thing Athens prides itself on is not looking too far ahead into the schedule. In Adams’ mind, while Canal Winchester will be a tough matchup for the Bulldogs in week two, right now he wants his players to focus on week one.
“We got a really tough opponent in week two, and we don’t ever like to forward to what we have in the week ahead,” he said.
“You can’t look past one for one second because what we have to do is show great improvement during the course of this week if we are going to be able to do the things we want in the future.”
So not looking into week two, week one is going to provide Athens with a test to how well it can control the run game.
Both teams will most likely bring a run heavy offense, so Friday night will certainly be a game of controlling the clock. The real test is going to be who is going to bring the most intensity.
“I’m looking forward to finding out if my team has improved and whether or not my team is going to play with intensity and be hungry to win,” Adams said. “That’s what I want to see the most this Friday.”
