After a disappointing season this past year, which was riddled with injuries to key players, the Bakersfield College football team hopes that they can bounce back this upcoming season, while having to deal with a tough schedule.

“The guys have been working hard, and we have the toughest schedule we’ve had in a while, so we got to continue working on getting better,” said BC coach Jeff Chudy.

He said there are things they have to work on in the future.

“I still think we have to improve on our offensive line,” he said. “We got to protect our quarterback and be able to run the ball consistently. It’s an area that we struggled with last year, so hopefully we can improve on that.”

He added that they’re excited about Brian Burrell, quarterback, for this upcoming season.

“We’re excited about Brian. He’s been working hard to get back after getting hurt last year,” he said. “After he got hurt we weren’t able to get consistent play out of that position, so it will be great to have him back. He’s got a ton of talent, great work ethic and he leads by example, so I think he can be as good as any guy that has played here.”

He added that with them having a highly competitive schedule, all they can do is take it a day at a time and hope to dodge injuries because that hurt them this past year.  He also explained that BC has a big incoming freshman class, and a lot of them are local players.

“We got a huge class coming in, and I think they’ll give big contributions to all three phases of the game,” he said. “We expect them to come in and compete for a starting spot, and anytime you have good competition it can only help out your team.”