Football Bucs use the bye week to get healthy and catch their breath

Duane Carpenter
September 23, 2022

TENNERTON – While week five of the high school football season takes shape Friday night, Buckhannon-Upshur head coach Zach Davis and his Buccaneers will be relaxing and taking it all in as they are on their bye week this week.

“I think having our bye week in week five is a good spot,” said Davis. “I have had it in week 10 or 11 and it’s almost pointless at that time. We are fortunate to have it in week five.”

The Bucs got a little banged up last week against John Marshall losing a trio of players to injury including senior quarterback Ian Donnen, so Davis said the bye week is coming at a good time for the Bucs health wise.

“Definitely coming at a good time as far as injuries are concerned,” noted Davis. “Injuries happen, but at the same time, it allows us to get other player more reps. As a coach, we want everyone to be ready to go. As coaches, it gives us time to catch our breath and make some adjustments that can make the team better. Our first four games were quite the challenge. We open at Bridgeport, have two barn-burners with Philip Barbour and Ripley, then we make the three-hour bus ride to John Marshall, so it’s good to be able to catch our breath and sort of hit the reset button on the season as we move forward.”

Davis said that his team has had a good week of practice despite not having a game to look forward to Friday night.

“It’s about sticking with fundamentals in practice,” stated Davis. “We had a good week of practice this week. Like I said, we were able to get some kids more reps in practice which is always a good thing. We rep everyone but some took more this week. That’s a good thing which creates some competition among the players.”

The Bucs enter the bye week with a 2-2 record being ranked 18^th in the latest WVSSAC ratings.

“We are 2-2, we won the two that we needed to win and the other two would have been bonuses if we could have gotten them,” remarked Davis. “We are looking forward to playing our final six games and see where it takes us. We still have some rivalry games left with Lewis County and Elkins and those are always big games for us. We still have our Homecoming game with Oak Hill and Senior Night with Elkins. We have a lot of games left that we look forward to playing.”