Head coach John Walsh ran into Todd Moebes for three consecutive years in the playoffs from 2008-2010.
Moebes, then the defensive coordinator for Abilene Cooper, ran the same defensive scheme against Walsh and Denton Guyer in the tournament a decade ago that he’s running now.
Walsh won all three meetings between the two.
“He hasn't changed one bit so I'm used to the defense,” Walsh said. “We know what's going to be coming at us. But it’s gonna be a good game.”
Both Lockhart (0-1) and San Marcos (0-1) found success in their season openers, putting up over 300 yards on the ground in each of their games. Junior running back Kanui Guidry broke out the longest run of the night with a 99-yard score that ended the third quarter and added to his 257 rushing yards. After the game, he credited his offensive line for his excellent ground work. The line will look to replicate last week's performance in order to get their running back more space and have another successful game on the ground.
“We were just opening up holes and just letting that man do his stuff,'' senior offensive lineman Easthan Mendez said. “I mean (Guidry’s) a great running back and all we have to do is just give him some space and he can wiggle through and make those plays.”
The Lions produced a spectacular 8.4 yards per carry in their opener — a 31-22 home loss to Buda Johnson — recording 37 carries for 310 rushing yards and three touchdowns behind their stout line.
San Marcos defensive coordinator Kurtis Kloiber went back to the fundamentals this week in practice and believes that’s what it’s going to take in order to stop Lockharts ground attack.
“(Lockhart has) a pretty explosive quarterback, he's a really good runner, he throws the ball pretty decent. They’ve got two backs, both of them are really good.” Kloiber said. “One’s a sophomore and one's a senior, they're both pretty explosive and then there's an inside Z receiver, which is inside to the field, most of the night, he's a pretty explosive player.
“We just go back to what we do every day. We play a certain front, we do a certain things a certain way and it's not about finding the balls it’s, again, about playing the gap responsibilities, and then it's swarming to the ball once we've done that. So that's what I'm hoping to do there to kind of combat the run game,” Kloiber said. “They certainly have a pretty potent run game, so we respect that. But at the same time, we're ready to defend it.”
It may be another ground-and-pound battle on Friday night when the Rattlers travel to Lions Stadium for a non-district game against Lockhart, with kickoff set for 7:30 p.m.
The ground attack may become the identity in San Marcos and Walsh assures it will be a part of the game plan every week.
“We're gonna run a football San Marcos. We're going to have big numbers but we are going to run the football,” Walsh said.
