Giants Bounce Back With 40-19 Victory
By Spencer Beair

On September 18th, 2021, The COS Giants routed the San Joaquin Delta Mustangs with a final score of 40-19. This marked Head Coach Travis Burkett’s first win at the position, and also the first win of the season for COS.

This victory marks a large bounce-back performance for the giants after they lost 41-0 last week against the San Mateo Bulldogs. One of the largest differences between these last two weeks was the number of sacks that the Giants allowed onto their quarterbacks, and Coach Burkett explained that the biggest change in that respect was how well the quarterbacks played their position.

“You know sacks are a team stat, it’s easy to point fingers at the offensive line, but the sacks are a team stat. Basically, the quarterbacks just played better period. The quarterback’s fundamentals and techniques were just better.” – Travis Burkett

Against San Mateo on September 11th, the Giants quarterbacks were sacked 7 times in total, accounting for a loss of 51 yards. In contrast to that performance, COS QB’s were only sacked once against San Joaquin Delta, showing that improvement that the coach referred to.

A huge part of the victory on the 18th was the pressure that COS running backs were able to put onto the Delta defense. John Friend and Jaedyn Pineda combined for 16 carries with a total yardage of 172.

John Friend had a bounceback game today along with the rest of the team, as he doubled the number of rushing yards that he accrued in the game last weekend.

“I think I moved the ball better this week and I was also more elusive, running over and past people” – John Friend

Friend averaged 3.2 yards per carry against San Mateo, with total rushing yardage of 45 yards on 14 attempts. Against Delta, he averaged 6.7 yards in 12 carries, with 80 total rushing yards. This game was a clear improvement over his last week’s performance, and hopefully something he can take into the rest of the year.

Another player who had a bounce-back performance was defensive back Benjamin Haywood, who against Delta had an interception, 2 broken up passes, and a tackle that prevented yardage gain.

Last weekend, Benjamin did not have any of those stats attributed to him.

Benjamin found that the time between games was extremely important to how much better he played this weekend, and working on gametime mentality during practice is something that got him prepared for Saturday.

“Compared to last week, I had way better practices. During practice, I was actually working on what I would do during the game and well, you saw the results” – Benjamin Haywood III

The numbers that Haywood and Friend put up played a large part in the success that COS found against Delta, and it shows massive improvement from week to week as well as the willingness of the Giants to learn from mistakes they made in previous games.

Haywood also attributed his improvement on the field performance to how comfortable he is getting around the Giants roster after starting playing for COS during this past spring season.

“I’m glad I came out in the spring, it not only secured me a roster spot, but it got me closer to God that I might be playing for the next two years, and I feel much more comfortable around these guys and I love ‘em” – Benjamin Haywood III

The Giants will take the momentum of their first win into next week, where they will be playing on the road against Shasta Community College, at 1 pm on Saturday the 25th.

“What you do in your work week, will always show up on Saturday” – Head Coach Travis Burkett, COS Football.