Pre/Game: Bandera (2-4) @ CL Hawks (2-4)

History: Canyon Lake lead series with Bandera, 2-0.
 2010 Hawks 35 Bandera 06
 2011 Hawks 55 Bandera 33

This Season's Scores:
 Hawks 26 Blanco     21   Bandera 13  George West  27
 Hawks 35 Somerset   54   Bandera 25  Devine       60
 Hawks 13 La Vernia  14   Bandera 26  Llano        39
 Hawks 31 Burnet     37   Bandera 39  Comfort      21
 Hawks 09 La Grange  34   Bandera 34  La Vernia    14
 Hawks 27 Billies    17   Bandera 06  Wimberley    40

Bandera comes into this week’s game without one of their best offensive players.

Quarterback Michael Miller was lost for the year in their win over La Vernia two weeks ago.

Miller was a do everything type of player for this Bulldog team. He might remind Hawk fans of that quarterback (name withheld by Doctors orders) for Boerne last year that became a nightmare for all those sleepless nights as fans waited for this season to start.

Miller still leads District 27-3A in rushing after missing his first game last week against Wimberley. His 735 yards rushing will be hard to replace to say the least.

In fact, Miller accounted for 53% of the Bulldogs offense until his injury.

Last week Bandera had a task of opening District 27-3A playing a Wimberley defense and you can guess what might of happened.

Playing with a new QB and against arguably the toughest defense in district this year.

How about 272 yards of total offense down from their 404 yards per game before district started.

Now Noah Nelson takes the reins at QB for Bandera and a 37% completion rate. With Nelson taking snaps it also took their best receiver out of their offense.

That one injury also made their running game more predictable.

Fabian Muniz has 495 yards rushing, but he could only muster 42 yards against Wimberley, while Noah had just 25 yards rushing as their quarterback.

The game with the Texans was without any turnovers giving you another idea of how much Wimberley controlled this game.

Canyon Lake’s all time rusher (Zach Henshaw) was only able to rush 97 yards on 30 carries last season when his averaged was over 200 yards per game for that year.

Case and point, those stats will let you know that playing Wimberley can wreck havoc on any team’s offense.

Bandera’s receivers are not game changers, even though John Stoufflet did have an 84 touchdown reception for the Bulldogs only touchdown last week.

No receiver has over 100 yards this season, except for their quarterback which has already been mentioned as why he is now their quarterback.

For a game comparison, Bandera and Canyon Lake have both played La Vernia this year.

Bandera spanked the Bears by 20 points while the Hawks were caught in a trash container while camping in a National Park. (Bears like to eat food they don’t have to kill)

Bandera did not have Muniz for this game but did have Kavan Conner with 200 yards rushing and three touchdowns. Miller also contributed with 164 yards on the ground in this game.

Canyon Lake was only able to garner 172 yards on the ground as a team, while Bandera almost had two players each that out gained what the Hawks put up.

In the passing game, Bandera had 45 yards and CL only could double that number in this category.

Based on this same team comparison, both teams were able to hold La Vernia right at 250 yards of offense.

Canyon Lake did have their offense wake from their slumber with Fredericksburg, but it wasn’t an eye opening morning, as the Hawks did play this game with sleep still in their eyes.

Rushing for 125 yards doesn’t instill fear in opposing teams and even though the passing did get to 184 yards, it still took an interception return to help in scoring points.

Defensively holding Fredericksburg to four field goal tries was a huge help in securing last week’s game for the win column.

Canyon Lake will need to establish a better rushing game as they continue through district play. An improvement in this stat will allow their offense to stay on the field longer and in so doing, take some air out of the ball.

Bandera will not be an easy game for Canyon Lake as home field has not been nice so far this year.

Three games and three losses have not given teams a ‘fear’ of playing on the road aura.

Haven’t asked yet, but maybe Canyon Lake has some new home uniforms and can start a winning streak with the new attire.

It certainly helped last week in Fredericksburg with those nice looking road uniforms.