The Hampton-Dumont-CAL football team will look to snap a two-game losing streak in Friday’s Week 5 game at Oelwein, which’ll air on 104.9 KLMJ and RadioOnTheGo’s YouTube channel.
The Bulldogs (1-3, 0-1 2A-4) fell 21-20 at home to Vinton-Shellsburg in last week’s district opener, where a blocked extra point and blocked field goal were key difference makers. Head Coach Cole Miller says that’s been a key area of emphasis this week.
“Special teams operations has been big this week,” Miller says. “That wasn’t the only thing that changed the game, but we’ve got to make sure that our operations are better to give us a chance at getting the kick off at the end of the game and giving our kicker a chance just to put one through the uprights. We took care of the ball better last week. We didn’t have any lost fumbles or anything like that, but we did throw a pick. So still preaching ball security and valuing the possessions. We really put an emphasis on finishing drives this week, so hopefully we can see that translate. And then our defense, we want to tighten up in the back half of our defense, our secondary. They’re challenging themselves to play better and we need our defensive line and our front seven to continue doing what they did last week.”
Offensively, the Bulldogs showed strong balance with 202 rushing yards and 188 yards through the air.
Oelwein (0-4, 0-1 2A-4) has not been competitive, and fell 64-14 at Dike-New Hartford to begin district play last week. They threw three interceptions and only attempted four rushes, all by the quarterback. On the season, they’ve rushed for only 99 yards, and less than half a yard per carry. Miller says the Huskies are still trying to establish their run game.
“You want to emphasize their strength for sure so we can try and take it away. That’d be their passing game. So we definitely have spent some time working on different things that we can limit there. I think statistically their best player is a freshman. So they’ve got some young talent over there. But then we don’t want this to be the game that they end up popping off for 100-plus yards rushing. So we’ve emphasized that their strength is their passing game, but we haven’t taken away the importance of our front seven and making sure that they control the line of scrimmage on defense.”
Coverage will start at 6:15 p.m., followed by the kickoff at 7:00.
