Youthful Bobcats produce at BBHS

Heading into his team’s scrimmage with Breaux Bridge Thursday, the one thing Erath head coach Jacob Byler was sure of was there were plenty of question marks.
Byler has coached Erath for more than 20 years. During that time he has never had a team return so few starters -- two Bobcats return on the defensive side. With that said, though, Byler was pleased with what he saw from his young ‘Cats Thursday against a top-tier 4A team.
“I was really pleased,” said Byler. “We were able to keep it where they scored one and then we scored one.
“We played real good defense and we played good offense.”
Byler would not go as far as to say he was pleasantly surprised.
“It did build my confidence in them,” said Byler. “They got a lot more confidence.”
The Bobcats went toe-to-toe with the Tigers and never backed down.
“That is what I was looking for,” said Byler. “Would we back off when we got tired?
“We didn’t. We really got after them.”
Byler and his coaching staff added some veer to the offense. Byler was interested to see how the players handled the new element.
“It worked pretty good,” said Byler. “We never broke anything big. We were able to make first downs and to me, that is important.”
Byler had questions going into Thursday, such as who among his Bobcats were ready to step up. For now, Byler said he is happy with the answers he received Thursday.
“It was an all-around good effort by our kids,” said Byler. “I think they want to play the game.”