Every week in the past month, with the Rajkovich Agricultural
Building as a backdrop, the San Benito High football team has used
a small patch of grass, where 50 yards are marked off, as it’s
early morning home.
Five days a week since June, members of the Balers football team
have spent their early morning
– 6 a.m. to be exact – running and getting prepared for the
upcoming season, the eighteenth season under coach Chris
Cameron.
Every week in the past month, with the Rajkovich Agricultural Building as a backdrop, the San Benito High football team has used a small patch of grass, where 50 yards are marked off, as it’s early morning home.
Five days a week since June, members of the Balers football team have spent their early morning – 6 a.m. to be exact – running and getting prepared for the upcoming season, the eighteenth season under coach Chris Cameron.
Without pads, the morning practices and conditioning sessions have been used for instruction and installation of the team’s playbook.
On Tuesday, they took what they learned and implemented it in a 7-on-7 scrimmage with Aptos High. With no lineman – and pads – the focus was on the team’s unheralded passing game and quarterback, junior Michael Bocksnick.
Despite the drill’s reliance on passing, the team will stay a heavy running team, Cameron said.
“We are a running football team,” he said. “As long as I am here we will be a running football team. But this … allows us to be a good play-action team.”
Bocksnick, who was the backup quarterback on last year’s 6-5 team, stood tall in the pocket Tuesday, driving the offense up the 50-yard field. To a heavy reception from sideline spectators and teammates, the young quarterback threw three long touchdowns that stretched the length of the shortened field.
But more than anything the 2-hour scrimmage was a learning lesson for the quarterback and his teammates.
“It’s really important as a triple option team that we work on the play action and the passing game, so we can have the option of passing,” he said. “This allows us to work together as a team.”
Bocksnick said the morning practices and the 7-on-7 drills help create camaraderie amongst the team.
“It’ll help create the chemistry we need,” he said.
To continue that offensive and defensive chemistry, the team will take part in a 7-on-7 tournament in Carmel on Saturday and Sunday against 21 regional teams, Cameron said.
“It allows us to play against other people,” he said. “This is fake football – without lineman it’s fake football – but it gives them a chance to play other people.”
And the players enjoy it.
Junior wide receiver Robert Soto said it allows the team to get a feel for each other and the passing game.
“When we do this, it allows us to become more efficient on offense,” he said.
On the defensive side of the ball, it allows the team to start its communication between each play, Cameron said.
“We need to talk to each other on defense,” he said. “People need to communicate and this is part of that repetition.”
Practicing identifying and calling out plays allows the team to get into a rhythm before they put on pads, Cameron said.
“It’s important to create the repetition,” he said.
To do that, Cameron puts an emphasis on the morning practices, when the entire team is there with each other. The practices include film sessions and play installation.
“We have to do it now because we will run out of time later,” Cameron said.
Under the current schedule, the team can’t use pads until the first day of school on Aug. 15 – less than two weeks before the first game.
“It doesn’t give us much time,” he said.
Cameron hopes the team knows the plays and philosophies before putting on pads to quicken the learning curve, he said.
“With enough repetition they should know this stuff,” he said. “But we will only use what we can protect. We’ve got to protect for it to work.”
But that will come once the team is in pads.
