Special teams broke open the game and created some separation for the Bakersfield College Renegades in their first game of the season at home on Sept. 4 against non-conference opponent L.A. Pierce.

The Renegades are 1-0 after a 52-41 win, but it wasn’t all smiles and happy faces after the game. The Renegades defense allowed 41 points on over 600 yards of offense, while BC managed 172 yards passing and 136 yards rushing for a total of 308 yards of offense.

While BC scored 52 points, they gave up just about anything the Brahmas wanted on offense.

“We have to figure out how to tackle better. We have to do more tackling drills,” said head coach Jeff Chudy. “We have to tackle better and we have to block better. Football is not that complicated of a sport. We make it very complicated. Defensively you’ve got to tackle and offensively you’ve got to block. If you can’t block people it’s hard to be consistent and if you can’t tackle people, it’s hard to stop them from scoring points.”

The Brahmas scored on seven of their 13 offensive possessions while the Renegades scored on six of their 12 offensive possessions.

Pierce had 33 first downs while the Renegades had 14.

Special teams and several big plays gave the Renegades the edge down the stretch. With under 5 minutes left in the first quarter, running back Andre Smith took a kick return 95 yards to the three yard line to set up freshman running back Leandre West for the three yard score to put the Renegades up 10-7. Smith ran for 33 yards on 12 carries.

After a fake punt attempt by Pierce was shut down by defensive back Dillon Meadows at the 7-yard line, sophomore-starting quarterback Lyle Negron threw a 6-yard pass to the freshman from Garland, Texas, Brandon Hobdy giving him his first touchdown of the game, putting BC up for the rest of the game with the score of 17-10.

Sophomore Loren Kolb caught a 34-yard pass from Negron while many of the Pierce players stood and watched because of penalty flags. The flags ended up being against the Brahmas and was then declined by the Renegades resulted in the touchdown.

Negron, Kolb and Hobdy would all connect for another touchdown following running back Julian Dean-Johnson’s 24-yard kick return, and the Renegades executing a two-minute drill.

The drive started with a 19-yard screen pass from Negron to West and a 12-yard scramble for Negron. After an incomplete pass from Negron to West, Chudy and offensive coordinator Carl Dean put together a set of plays to open up the east side of the field and pull a special play out to end the half.

First they had Negron lateral to Smith to stretch the field west and on fourth-and-13 the Renegades final offensive play of the half Negron tossed a lateral to Loren Kolb who stepped back and threw a 33 yard pass to Hobdy, who slowed down, and watched the ball drop into his hands before turning up field for the open end zone.

The touchdown pass was Kolb’s only attempt of the game.

After the game, Chudy went on to explain what the Renegades had in mind.

“That was a screen to Andre that got us to the other hash. Kolby is a right-handed quarterback, so we got the ball to the left hash with Andre screening to the short side of the field there, and then we set the play up.”

In the third quarter, Dean-Johnson took a 94-yard kick return all the way back for a touchdown, putting the Renegades up by 38-24 after the Josh Gallington extra point.

Early in the fourth quarter, BC had just scored on a 10-play drive with most of the damage coming from Negron on the ground and a pass interference call that gave BC a new set of downs. Curt Huge kicked off to Pierce’s Clifford Johnson, and on the return, Renegade defensive back Tyler Dogins reached in, stripped away the ball, and returned it 30 yards for BC’s final touchdown.

The Renegades didn’t put up as many yards rushing as they expected and had to rely on the big plays at times.

“Well, I don’t think you put that yardage total on the backs. We didn’t block very well. We were fortunate enough to score 52 points off of big plays. You look at kickoff returns, you look at freeze count faking the snap count and throwing it up there, and you look at the double pass. We were a big play team tonight, and we expected to score and have some big plays, but we certainly have to be a lot more consistent,” said Chudy. “We just didn’t block very well, so having said that, it’s certainly not on the running backs. We have to do a better job at blocking at the point of attack.”

Pierce rotated two quarterbacks in and out of the game. The starter Clinton Granger was 8-of-15 for 141 yards and one touchdown and one interception with seven rushes for 52 yards. Exavier Johnson was 20-of-29 for 193 yards and two touchdowns and one interception with 9 rushes for 92 yards. Running back Daniel Lopez carried the ball 12 times for 110 yards and two touchdowns. Receiver Dame Julian added 8 catches for 107 yards and one touchdown, while Tyrone Harris had 6 catches for 111 yards and one touchdown.

Negron completed 7-of-17 passes for two touchdowns no interceptions and 139 yards. He also ran for 61 yards and one touchdown on 11 carries.

Before the game, quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator Dean talked about winning the turnover battle and why they chose Negron over backup Byron Campbell.

“Really it came down to the last scrimmage and Lyle just playing really well, and did some good things. And that’s kind of our confidence in both of them. I feel very confident in both of them on the field, so I think maybe just having a little bit better grasp on the system is kind of what we went with on Lyle,” said Dean. “I expect him to help us win. That’s the most important thing. How we do that really doesn’t matter. If we run for a lot of yards or if we throw it, I don’t care how we do it. I expect him to run our system.

“I expect him to take care of the football. One of the things we preach is taking care of the football and you’re not going to play if you don’t take care of the football. You look at any box score on a Saturday or Sunday morning, and it always comes down to who took care of the football and you can’t win if you have turnovers. Put the ball on the ground or you put it in the opponent’s hands, you’re not going to play. Know that it’s OK to punt the football; you don’t have to force a first down or force a pass in order to move the chains.”