Prep football preview: Blackfoot looking to rebound from 0-9 season behind physicality
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BLACKFOOT — The Blackfoot Broncos are coming off a winless season.
The 0-9 record resulted in the replacement of four-year head coach Jerrod Ackley. Blackfoot High School reached into the Magic Valley for a replacement, hiring former Declo High School head coach Josh Stewart.
Stewart, who grew up in Driggs, told EastIdahoNews.com that despite leading the Hornets to a 2A State Championship berth and an 11-1 season, he jumped at Blackfoot’s offer.
“Southeast Idaho is home to me,” he said. “So the opportunity to come back and be a part of a school like Blackfoot, which has such a great tradition of football, was too good to pass up.”
Stewart wasn’t sure what to expect, taking over for a team coming off one of the roughest seasons in its school’s history. He was pleased to find a group of players with a “good attitude” and who “worked really hard in the spring and summer.”
“When we went to our team camp this summer, the two big things I was looking for were, are we going to be physical enough and athletic enough to compete. I felt like both those questions were answered, yes,” he said.
Still, Stewart acknowledges that a season like last year’s will present some “mental obstacles” for his team. A big part of rebounding, he said, will be about getting past small mistakes rather than allowing them to snowball with a not-again mentality.
“Bad things happen,” he said. “The best of teams have turnovers, they have bad plays. Good teams are able to get over those quick and bounce back.”
With a new coach comes new gameplans for the Broncos.
Stewart explained his offensive philosophy as one dependent upon physicality. For his teams, winning is about controlling the line of scrimmage and establishing the run.
“We’ll still throw the ball, have some spread concepts, but we really want to be able to run the ball,” he said. “Especially in Idaho, you’re going to have games where the weather’s not good and you have to be able to run the football.”
The athleticism and explosivity of the offense will come when Blackfoot gets the ball in space to receivers like senior Jaiden Rodriguez, who Stewart said runs a 10.9-second 100 meter.
Defensively, Stewart said the focus will be on stopping the run by, again, controlling the line of scrimmage.
As for expectation, Stewart would not put a number on how many wins he thinks his team is capability of picking up, but said they will be competitive every week and come out on top at least some of those weeks.
“I expect us to compete,” he said. “Last year’s season was what it was — there were a lot of games that weren’t competitive. We’re going to compete. Every game, we’ll be in it, we’ll be physical.”