Balers will need to stay near injury-free in order to
successfully run option offense
Even before its Team First Football Camp last week in Hollister,
members from the San Benito Haybalers had been undergoing four
weeks of training and conditioning as part of its summer program.
The team’s first official practice isn’t scheduled to begin until
the week of Aug. 10
– a little more than three weeks away – but San Benito’s
”
nobody works harder
”
mantra seems to always be in season.
Balers will need to stay near injury-free in order to successfully run option offense
Even before its Team First Football Camp last week in Hollister, members from the San Benito Haybalers had been undergoing four weeks of training and conditioning as part of its summer program. The team’s first official practice isn’t scheduled to begin until the week of Aug. 10 – a little more than three weeks away – but San Benito’s “nobody works harder” mantra seems to always be in season.
“It’s always important,” head coach Chris Cameron said last weekend regarding the conditioning aspect during the offseason. “We’re always trying to take a step forward.”
Being a well-conditioned team would certainly make that first step for the Balers an easier one. Struggling on offense last year, the team was riddled with injuries for one reason or another, especially on the offensive side of the ball – San Benito was forced to play its emergency third-string quarterback at one point.
Senior signal-caller Trevor Fabing, who was sidelined with a hip-pointer injury at the start of last season, stressed the importance of staying healthy this year, especially with the offense’s new triple option attack.
“We’re gonna need [to stay healthy] with this triple option because we’re gonna be running a lot,” Fabing said. “We need to keep from the injuries, unlike last year.”
The triple option, as evidenced at the Team First Football Camp last Friday and Saturday, does employ a passing game, but is structured around a three-pronged running attack where the quarterback can pitch to the fullback, pitch to the halfback, or decide to keep the ball and run upfield.
During the team’s scheduled spring practices in early June, Cameron said San Benito previously ran an option-oriented offense in 1998, but through continuous changes and tweaks each season, essentially moved further and further away from the offense it started with.
“We kept building off of it and we got away from it,” Cameron said in June. “But it’s all stuff that we ran before.”
And Fabing said last Saturday he already feels comfortable in the “new” offense, and is enjoying its run-first approach.
“I get to run,” he said. “I get to run in open space.
“I feel good in it. We’ve jumped a long ways.”
Competing in 11-on-11 scenarios at the Team First Football Camp last weekend, with area teams Live Oak and North Salinas, Fabing felt the triple option looked good, despite San Benito missing some key members from the offensive line – some due to injury, some ill, some on vacation.
“We’re missing four offensive linemen right now,” Fabing said, “and we still looked good.”
Cameron too was pleased with what he saw.
“I felt like we did a little bit better,” he said. “I wasn’t quite sure, with some of the guys not practicing, so that was a positive thing.
“But both quarterbacks (Fabing and Tyler Decker) made some nice decisions.”
Cameron feels the team is right on pace with where they should be at this point in the offseason, but wouldn’t go beyond that due to the limited contact the team has experienced.
“But I don’t think we’re behind either,” he said. “We’re doing some solid things, but we’ve got a ways to go and there are still points of the game that we need to get better at.
“But until you get pads on, you don’t have the opportunity to work on some things.”
