Bulldogs ready to rumble

CRESTVIEW – The 2010 football season kicks off for the Crestview on Thursday when the Bulldogs travel to Gulf Breeze for the preseason Kickoff Classic.

Game time is scheduled for 7 p.m.

Bulldog coach Matt Brunson is ready to see how his team will play when the lights come on.

“You are always concerned until you put yourself against a good opponent,” he said. “We looked OK in the spring against Niceville.

“Now we’ve got some big, strong, physical kids up front and if we can get some guys doing some things behind them and get a little passing game going, I think we will be OK, because I do think we are going to be physical.”

The physicality of the Bulldogs will be thanks to a tough offseason program.

“I feel like we had a good summer, conditioning wise, in our strength program,” Brunson said. “The guys bought in and we had great attendance and I think that spilled into our fall camp.

“We are ahead of the game conditioning wise and our guys are physical. We just have to keep working on blocking and tackling and hope it comes together.”

Senior quarterback Garrett Teal, who takes over for two-year starter Blake Ritchie, is ready to go.

“We’ve put in a lot of work this summer, and in the spring too,” Teal said. “I feel good about everything we’ve done. I’m excited that the season has started.

“I definitely expected to be nervous getting to this point of the year, but I think the little experience I had last year (against Milton) and the spring game (against Niceville), especially, kind of took the nerves off. I’m just excited to get started rolling into the season. It’s been a long August so far and I’m ready to play some football.”

Senior Steven Noble isn’t as concerned about the Dolphins as he is the Bulldogs doing what they need to do to be successful.

“We are going to over there and compete, that’s the main thing,” Noble said. “We have worked on a lot of stuff and have gotten better. We have bonded as a team together.

“We are going to go over there and compete and hopefully we’ll look pretty strong. We are going to go over there and it is going to help us see what we do right and what we do wrong. It will give us a good look at what we need to work on.”

Teal doesn’t think the Bulldogs will be overlooking a Class 3A Gulf Breeze team that was winless last year.

“I think we’ve done a pretty good job of that (beating GB) in the past,” he said. I know we went 0-0 (final score in the Kickoff Classic) with them a couple of years ago.

“Honestly, everybody looked at that as a disappointment, nothing against Gulf Breeze, but we expect a little more out of this group and this team.”

Noble believes if the Bulldogs take care of the little things they should come out on top Thursday night.

“We need to be reading our keys and getting the job done,” he said. “And each player needs to be worrying about his job.”

It is certain Crestview won’t be pulling out all the stops against Gulf Breeze.

“Bottom line is we want to get as many guys as possible – every guy—on the field, in a jersey, in a game situation, so we can get them on film to critique them and make sure we have the right 11 out there when the regular season opens,” Brunson said.

“We will be very basic and still working on our basic run game and our basic defense.”