The Bakersfield College football team will be traveling to Culver City on Saturday, Oct. 27, to play the Oilers of West Los Angeles College.
Craig Austin, coach of West L.A., welcomes the challenge.
“It’s a good opportunity to shock the world,” he said of playing BC. “We can’t wait for BC to get here.”
While the Renegades are ranked No. 1 nationally with a record of 7-0 and West L.A. is 1-6, traveling to play an opponent sometimes presents a challenge for the traveling squad.
“We have to get up early and get down there, which is always an adventure for us,” said Jeff Chudy, BC head football coach. The game starts at 1 p.m.
Even though the trip to Culver City may present a challenge, the last two games against Santa Barbara City College and Citrus College have been somewhat turbulent for the Renegades offensively.
In the homecoming game against Santa Barbara on Oct. 20, the Renegades came out in their traditional red jerseys with white pants before 7,329 fans and eventually beat up the Vaqueros, 28-12.
There may be over 7,000 reasons that it was the largest home crowd of the regular season.
According to Jan Stuebbe, BC athletic director, some of those reasons may be that it was homecoming, the fact that BC is unbeaten or that people are having fun with tailgating themes.
“It was awesome,” Stuebbe said. “People are having a lot of fun and enjoying themselves.”
As far as the game, it seemed as though some of the offensive turbulence had subsided, and the team was having fun. BC took the opening kickoff and capped off an impressive drive with a 20-yard touchdown pass from Jacob Bower to Attrail Snipes on a fourth-and-12 situation to give the Renegades a 7-0 lead.
The Vaqueros threatened to score in the first quarter when Santa Barbara returned a BC punt down to the BC 2-yard line.
Once again, the Renegades’ defense was tenacious and stingy as it has been all season long, forcing the Vaqueros to settle for a 25-yard field goal by kicker Jeremy Ybarra, which made the score, 7-3.
“We are playing really well defensively, rock solid,” Chudy said.
Early in the second quarter, the Renegades put seven more points on the scoreboard, when freshman Justin Jackson scored from 3 yards out and Arturo Villa kicked the extra point to make the score, 14-3.
Just before the half, the BC offense showed the homecoming crowd some razzle-dazzle as defensive back Dustin Bell took a misdirection hand-off and threw a 25-yard touchdown strike to Brandon Banks. The scoreboard read 21-3 at the half.
The Vaqueros were determined to get something going in the second half as they took the kickoff, drove the field and added three more points by Ybarra to make the score 21-6.
The fourth quarter provided some big play action by both squads.
Santa Barbara made things interesting when Nick Acciani delivered a 79-yard TD bomb to Hunter Easterling to bring the Vaqueros within nine points, 21-12. The 2-point conversion failed.
Bower showed some real leadership when he led the Renegades down the field and scored on a quarterback sneak which was eventually the final score, 28-12.
In the final minutes of the contest, Ben Estill rushed for 60 yards in 12 carries and showed team depth in the BC running game as he led all rushers. Santa Barbara only managed 44 yards on the ground.
The big plays for the Renegades were two interceptions by defensive backs Dustin Bell and Daron Mackey late in the fourth quarter that took away any hopes of a Vaquero comeback. “It was crunch time,” Mackey said. “I did what I needed to do.”
The negative aspect in this contest for BC was the penalties. The ‘Gades were penalized 115 yards.
“We had too many penalties on offense,” Chudy said. “They are mental mistakes and are drive killers.”
The contest between BC and Citrus College on Oct. 13 pitted the No. 1 offense in the Western State Conference (BC) against the No. 1 defense (Citrus). Even though there were numerous mistakes made by the BC offense, the ‘Gades prevailed, 24-7.
Defensive effort and solid 261-yard performance by the BC running game helped the Renegades gain momentum to overcome a tight 14-7 game going into the fourth quarter.
The fourth quarter belonged to BC as the ‘Gades scored the final 10 points, a 3-yard run by Pat Patterson and 22-yard field goal by Villa.
Bruce Frieson, a transfer from the University of Toledo, rushed for 147 yards, and Patterson ran for 99.
The Owls could muster only seven points and 126 total yards of offense in the contest. Citrus scored in the second quarter on a 13-yard touchdown pass from Travis Gowan to Chris LaCount.