Bowling Green School opens the 2017 season tonight by hosting Park Place Christian Academy with kickoff at 7 p.m.
“First game, we’re playing at home and we’re playing an opponent we don’t know a lot about. They didn’t play a jamboree or scrimmage, so we don’t know a lot of about them. We exchanged some information, but we don’t know their personnel,” Bowling Green coach David Currier said. “Hopefully we match up. We’re just concerned about ourselves. Turnovers and mistakes beat us in the jamboree, so we’ve got to eliminate that. We had some blown coverages.
“We’ve got some kids that didn’t know what we were looking for, but I think we’ve got those things corrected. Everything’s thrown together. Four quarters and special teams is live. It’s football. It’s for real. It all counts now.”
The Buccaneers, who went 3-5 last season, enter this week after a pair of jamboree losses at Silliman Institute last Friday. Bowling Green lost to Central Private School, 16-0, and to Silliman, 20-6.
Linebacker Ben Bickham returns this week from an ankle injury. Defensive lineman Cade Morere is sidelined this week with an injury.
Currier expects quarterback Cameron Bell and offensive lineman/defensive lineman Gunner Peterson to play well.
“Cam’s an experienced junior. Gunner is our leader on the offensive and defensive line and he’s a senior,” Currier said.
Currier said the key to this week is eliminating mistakes.
“We can’t turn over the ball and make those mistakes,” Currier said. “We won’t win if we do that.”
Park Place Christian Academy is returning to 11-man football after playing eight-man for the last two seasons.
The team did not have a scrimmage or a jamboree.
Crusaders coach Doug Elkins enters his second season, after a 7-3 campaign last year.
Park Place has 32 players on its roster and only one freshman.
The Crusaders have two quarterbacks in Eli Sykes and Landon Clark. Elkins said they will go with the “hot hand.” Clark will play other positions besides quarterback.
Nic Butts and Adam Roberson are the running backs.
“Adam’s more of a fullback type. Nic is more of a tailback type,” Elkins said. “We’ll be in two-back some and we’ll be one-back some. When we’re in two-back, Nic will be back there. Typically, when we’re in one-back, Adam will be back there.”
The receivers are Connor Stewart, Tyler Martin and Zach Sewall. Elkins said Martin is more like a tight end, but splits out wide as well. Elkins said Martin has good hands.
Defensively, the team has a 50 look and bases out of a 5-2. Elkins said some of the same players mentioned on offense will also play defense.
One of the top defenders includes strongside linebacker Wes Miller, who also starts at center. Butts is a strong safety and Clark is a free safety.