Ware County hits the road Friday night with a second consecutive game away from the friendly confines of Memorial Stadium as they visit Bartram Trail in St. Johns, Fla., for a 7 p.m. start.
The seventh-ranked Gators (3-0) easily disposed of Bainbridge winning 58 20 in their first road encounter.
“That is a long trip over to Bainbridge,” said head coach Jason Strickland. “We got the win over a much-improved team, but we gave up too many rushing yards and had a couple special teams blunders with some fresh faces out there with guys out because of sickness. We’ve got to get that corrected.”
Bartram Trail (02) is off to a slow start losing by a combined 75-31 score. Ponte Vedra beat the Bears 48-14 last week. Bartram Trail has lost seven of its last nine games following a 43-42 overtime road win against Ware County.
“They (Bears) are in a little bit of a skid,” said Strickland. “The thing that concerns me is (Arthur) Lewis (Sr., 5-foot-10, 190 lbs.). He torched us last year (224 yards, three touchdowns).” Through the first two games, Lewis has 24 carries for 130 yards and one score. This on the heels of a 1,666-yard 2024 campaign with 21 touchdowns.
According to Strickland, Bartram Trail has played a couple of quarterbacks the first two games in search of a signal-caller.
Senior Coleson Baum (6-4, 185) and sophomore Gavin Peterson (6foot, 170) have combined to go 21of-36 for 278 yards with two touchdowns and three interceptions. Baum, who has 117 yards rushing, has thrown for 258 of the passing yards with both touchdowns and all three interceptions.
“That’s concerning you as to what they do offensively,” Strickland said. “They (Bears) have turned the ball over at the quarterback position the last couple of weeks. It’s them in a bad situation.
“They’ve got this big offensive line and they just do a great job of just covering people up in the run game and creating seams for Lewis. It’s kind of similar to what we’ve seen with Coffee and Bainbridge the last two weeks.
“My expectation is they’re (Bartram Trail offensive coaches) going to take the film from Bainbridge and Coffee and try to see how they can create a good run game against us. They maybe limit how much they’re going to throw the football. When they hand the ball to Lewis it’s a scary deal.”
The seventh-year head coach is pleased the defensive unit has scored in each of the first three games.
“The defensive staff is doing a great job of creating turnovers in practice and that’s showing up on Friday nights,” said Strickland.
The veteran coach believes the Bears’ 4-2 defensive alignment will present different coverages in the secondary.
“They play with really, really good technique on the defensive line and play well with their hands,” said the veteran coach. “They are very, very multiple in the secondary and I believe we’ll see all sorts of coverages and things back there.”
Strickland said the key for his offensive staff is locating their best defensive player quicker than they did last year.
“We were down 21-0 in the first quarter until we he was identified,” said the head coach. “We can’t, we can’t have it take that long this time. Once we identified him, we would motion and shift away and were able to get some big yardage in the running game that way.”
Strickland says the strategy for the fourth game has changed — run the ball and mix in the pass.
“We’ve got a veteran offense line,” he said. “Isaiah (White) is continuing to improve more and more at the quarterback position and were (coaches) put more on his plate. Last week we showed some empty (no running back) formations and we’ll continue to expand.
“We want to run the football behind a veteran offensive line and play really good special teams and complimentary defense. We’re trying to be physical and run the ball, play tough defense and that should travel most nights whether we’re playing at home or on the road.
“As the weather changes and all that sort of stuff, we don’t have to all of a sudden change who we are.”
Staying on schedule during an offensive series has been a key to the offensive units success.
“Coach (Brett) Stevenson and the offensive staff have done a terrific job of scheming up first down calls to make us get in winnable situation,” said Strickland. “We’re getting four or five yards on first and second down so the worst case scenario has been a lot of third-and-one or thirdand-two situations. And, we’re protecting the football.”
Strickland believes the issue in kick coverage at Bainbridge stemmed from guys missing because of sickness.
“We had a couple of guys out Friday night that can be traced to a school-type of sickness,” he said. “We (coaches) thought were going to be okay. So, we’ve got to get that right and make teams drive the length of the field. I don’t think defensively who just automatically get three-and-outs.
“But, the more they’re out there the more they’re going to create a problem and create a turnover. Hopefully we’ll have all of our bullets (players) back this week. We’re going to need them.”
