TENNERTON – Fresh off their bye week and looking to get back into the win column, the No. 18 Buckhannon-Upshur football Buccaneers will take to the road Friday night when they play the No. 15 University Hawks in a non-conference game.
Buckhannon-Upshur head coach Zach Davis said his Bucs are rested, healthy and ready to go Friday night against the Hawks.
“We had a great week of practice and even the film showed that,” noted Davis. “Our guys have been practicing hard, but they are rested up and ready to go for the final stretch of our season. We are healthier than we have been. Guys can be more physical in practice since they are healthier.”
The Bucs will face a Hawk squad coming off an impressive 19-14 win over Fairmont Senior on the road last week. University will enter the game with a 3-2 record with their losses coming to Parkersburg South (78-14) and Wheeling Park (55-33). They have wins over John Marshall (16-14), Brooke (43-12) and Fairmont Senior.
“University is a good team,” stated Davis. “They have good skill players and good lineman. They have good speed again this year. We have guys that are fast, but we just need to play faster as a team. We have simplified some of our schemes this week to let them play faster.”
The Bucs, who will enter the game with a 2-2 mark, will have to contain UHS quarterback Luke Hudson who went 13 for 24 for 182 yards and one score in their win over the Polar Bears last week, but he was picked off three times. He had two passes for over 50 yards last week as Rich Braham had two catches for 75 yards and a score while John Coleman hauled in a 51-yarder.
“We have to play better than we did against John Marshall if we want to be in the game with University,” noted Davis. “We have to control the football and the clock. We need to force University to become impatient, and hopefully make them be reckless when they have the ball. We need to do a good job of tackling them in the open field as well.”
Davis noted that the Bucs haven’t had much success in years past against University, and is hoping his team worries more about what they are doing than who they are playing.
“We don’t talk about the other team very much,” stated Davis. “Of course we know who we are playing and what they do, but we don’t get into who it is or where it is very often. Once the ball gets kicked off, it really doesn’t matter who is on the other side. It’s about our execution. That’s how we do it and will continue to do it.”
Following their battle with University, the Bucs will stay on the road next Friday with an outing with Route 33 rival Lewis County.
