The Del Rio Rams are putting it all together
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The 2005 season was an odd one for the Del Rio Rams under third-year head coach Jesse Treviño. Five home games, and five losses at their home stadium – none of which the Rams were even close in, losing by an average score in home district games of 39-7. Concurrently, Del Rio won all but one of their district road games, and finished 4-1 on the road for the season.
“Last year was frustrating for our team,” said Treviño. “You always want to play your best in front of your home fans. What was encouraging, though, was the way we played on the road.”
RAMS at a GlaceGetting better, bit-by-bit, is what the Rams have been striving to do the first three seasons under Jesse Treviño. While the wins and losses have improved, has the team made strides yet to compete for a playoff spot in the San Antonio based district? Coach Treviño thinks so, and hopefully with a healthy Mike Garcia this year, better home performances, and what they expect to be an improved defense, they can start to make things interesting in District 28-5A. |
Apparently, a trip to the Alamo City will bring out the best in some folks, as the 154-mile trek yielded strong wins for Del Rio over San Antonio Holmes and San Antonio Taft. Granted, those teams were the cellar dwellers of the “San Antonio Plus One” District 27-5A last year, and were games they should have won. Still, every road district game for the Rams in the all-San Antonio district is going to be tough – regardless of the opponent.
“For some reason – and I’m not exactly sure why – we were able to be a lot more focused on the road last year. We made the plays we needed to and took care of our assignments a lot better,” the Rams’ head coach said. “When we were at home, it seemed like nothing could go right. I don’t know if we relaxed because it was our home fans and didn’t take it as seriously, or what the deal was, but we’ve got to play better in Del Rio.”
Even the Rams’ one district loss in San Antonio was a 41-27 hard-fought defeat, arguably their best performance of the year, against eventual District Champion Clark. The next four teams down on the final 2005 standings for 27-5A - San Antonio teams Jay, O’Conner, Marshall, and Warren - all dominated the Rams on their home turf.
There’s no doubt that the Rams were put at a strong disadvantage from the get-go in ’05, with junior starting quarterback Mike Garcia going down to a season-ending knee injury in the first game of the year.
| 2006 Schedule | ||
| Sept 1 | San Angelo Lakeview | 7:30 pm |
| Sept 8 | Eagle Pass Winn | 7:30 pm |
| Sept 16 | at San Antonio O'Connor* | 7:30 pm |
| Sept 22 | San Antonio Marshall* | 7:30 pm |
| Sept 30 | at San Antonio Warren* | 7:30 pm |
| Oct 13 | San Antonio Taft* | 7:30 pm |
| Oct 21 | at San Antonio Jay* | 7:00 pm |
| Oct 27 | San Antonio Clark* | 7:30 pm |
| Nov 4 | at San Antonio Holmes* | 2:00 pm |
| Nov 10 | San Antonio Stevens* | 7:30 pm |
| *denotes district game | ||
While it was disheartening to lose their field general on offense, and then to lose resoundingly at home to four of the top five teams in the district, 2005 was an improvement for the Rams from the 3-17 combined record of the prior two seasons under Treviño’s tutelage. He and his staff hope that builds into even more wins in ’06.
Treviño, now entering his fourth season as Rams’ Head Coach, says the expectations have grown from within.
“I don’t know if many people really expect us to do much or win a whole lot of games, and that is fine by us,” Treviño said. “We know what we are capable of, and the thing is, if we continue to get better as we have been doing, then we will compete for a playoff spot. We have no doubt about that.”
The new season doesn’t bring scores of changes for the Rams to counter as far as district play is concerned. They still will play in the same league with all-San Antonio opponents. The district is now called 28-5A, and becomes a 9-team league with the same familiar foes for the Rams, except for the addition of San Antonio Stevens, a football program in its infancy.
On the offensive side of the ball, the Rams will run their offense through their returning starting quarterback, the aforementioned Mike Garcia, who sat out almost the entire year in ’05 because of his knee injury. A healthy year for the senior signal-caller could acquiesce the Rams to some more positive results around the bend.“I’m really excited to get out there and play a full season,” said Garcia. “This offense is a lot of fun to play in, and if I can play a full season, things are going to be a little different then they have been.”
The offense he speaks of, and that you see the blue and grey team running this year, may easily be mistaken for that of a team that plays a little north of Del Rio - that goes by the name “Red Raiders.” Texas Tech’s almost ridiculous, yet highly effective and widely renowned spread offense seems to be a very popular choice of late by a lot of Texas high school teams from 1A up. The “Air Raid,” spread ‘em out, dump-and-run, pass-happy, wear-the-defense-out scheme is architected by second-year offensive coordinator Kelly Parker.
And it isn’t by accident or just a crude copy-cat scheme. The Rams have some help in high places.
Del Rio native, and new Baylor Offensive Coordinator, Lee Hays has passed down many of his “trade secrets” to Parker and the Rams’ staff. Hays engineered the burgeoning West Texas A&M offensive juggernaut in the past three seasons. He, as was well publicized, met numerous times, formally and informally, with Mike Leach and his staff at Texas Tech to pick their brain on the Red Raider spread offense. He built an attack at Division II WT using the Tech system and was very successful (No. 1 passing offense - 363.8 ypg, No. 7 in scoring offense - 40.3 ppg, and No. 9 in total offense - 477.3 ypg in 2005 Division II), as Parker and the Rams plan to follow suit.
“This will be our second year in the spread, and last year we had some growing pains. If we can keep Mike (Garcia) out there all year, it will really help our cause and give us some real offensive continuity that we didn’t have,” Parker said. “The main key this year will be for us to spread the ball around to more guys on offense, and having some guys step up to be viable options on offense and having Mike (Garcia) distributing the ball well all over the field.”
The Rams’ offense returns five total starters from last season, including talented receiver Jeremy Washington (JR), left tackle Adam Mendoza (SR), and Raul Hernandez, who moves to the center position to anchor the offensive line.
What may be the real key if the Rams are to improve on their 4-6 2005 record this year, is the development of the defense. The Del Rio defense returns 8 starters from last year, tied for the most in the district. Defensive Coordinator Bo Camacho says they will be able to use more complicated defensive schemes with a more experienced core of defensive players.
“I want our kids to think ‘organized chaos’ when they are out there. We’re going to move around a lot, and shift, and really try to confuse the offense as to what we are going to do,” Camacho said. “We’re going to use that along with our speed and aggressiveness to really make some plays and get the ball back for the offense.”
While historically lacking in size, the Rams were terrific at forcing turnovers and laying big hits on their opponents last year, according to Camacho – and everyone wants to be a member of what the team calls the “Woo Crew.”“Every kid on the field wants to have the feeling of delivering a ‘WOO’ hit... that is when you hit an opponent so hard, the whole crowd goes ‘woo,’” Camacho said. “We want to build a real swagger out there on defense, and I think we will with the kids we have coming back.”
Camacho admits that part of putting it all together for the defense this year will be that while playing aggressive and forcing turnovers, making sure the Rams don’t give up the big defensive play, and have lapses of bad play where they give up a lot of points.
The Rams have a strong returning group of defensive starters from last year, which is anchored in the middle by senior defensive tackle J.D. Hernandez, a Unanimous All District 1st Team selection from last year, junior inside linebacker and Honorable Mention All District player Austin Benson, and 2nd Team All District defensive tackle, and senior Luis Aguilar.
The formula is pretty simple for Coach Treviño and the Rams: Spread the ball around and run an efficient offense, play an aggressive, hard-hitting defense and cause some turnovers, and play solid special teams – and the Rams will have a successful, playoff-contending year. Although there were visible improvements last year under Treviño, and continuing that trend will put the Rams in the thick of things in District 28-5A, many questions about their potential remains.
With road games in district play tougher this year, can the Rams translate last year’s road success into similar results in 2006, but against more talented teams?
Can the Rams “get the monkey off their back” at home, and win critical home games?
Will injuries take a toll on the Rams in a key area, like last year?
“We feel like we will really put it all together this year, and this is our year to make some noise,” Treviño said. “But it would be a great start to get a win against San Angelo Lakeview in the first game at home so we know we can play well at home. We’ve got to get that monkey off our back.”
That being said, hopefully home is a lot sweeter in ’06, and hopefully the Rams still thoroughly enjoy their trips to good ol’ San Antone. The “monkey” and September 1 await.
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