The fun and scary thing about the first game of the season is there’s often no telling what will materialize on the field. There’s a certain sense for those close enough to follow spring football and the August practices, but there’s nothing like live action to show exactly where a team stands. Katy got all it wanted and more out of its trip to Dickinson to kick off the 2024 season.
First impressions
My initial impressions as the first few series played out were that Katy looked clearly outmanned physically. Katy started very conservatively alignment and play selection wise, and the Gators were happy to just beat Katy off the ball and swarm the Tiger’s attempts at running early to use their physical advantage. Katy was not coming off the ball well or hitting the line of scrimmage with much intent. This would change as the game went on, at least on the intent side, for Katy’s ultimate gain. Early on, Katy was soft in my opinion. Katy doesn’t have sledgehammer personnel this year from what I saw in game one, but that just means the Tigers must be more dialed in intent wise in the ground game.
If Katy is going to insist on playing football in the phone booth tackle to tackle as a foundation in the offense, there needs to be a mentality to go with it. Otherwise, we look like a former heavyweight fighter who doesn’t realize he’s shed 50 pounds and is still trying to anchor in the middle of the ring to work the body while the more athletic, self-aware opponent is having a field day moving, punching, and avoiding taking any damage. This Katy offense is going to need to be more creative with the tools it has as this season develops, and the offense should run more through the QB Gunner Nelson in my opinion. Nelson showed special qualities against Dickinson.
Katy got the first shot
The game started with Dickinson deferring the opening toss for Katy to take the ball. Katy couldn’t get the offense going right away and ceded the initial advantage to the Gators. The Gators’ first touchdown was set up after they hit a deep vertical ball down the sideline. It was a strange looking play where there was some movement pre-snap, and Dickinson took the deep shot against singled up bump coverage on the outside. It was a nice throw and catch and a precursor to what Katy would see more of in the second half especially. 7-0 Dickinson. Katy’s offense was carried by the tight ends initially. Gunner was able to connect with his security outlets, and this is what got Katy’s offense moving. Katy recovered from the slow start to take a 14-7 lead into half.
Dickinson got the ball first to start the third quarter. Their second touchdown was the result of two Katy defenders hitting the running back flush at the same time, but neither wrapped up. The Gator RB bounced and spun out of the attempted tackles and beat Katy up the sidelines to score. It was 14-13 Katy after this play. On the ensuing kickoff from Dickinson, Katy failed to field a bouncing ball and the return man pushed the ball back into the endzone where he was tackled for a safety.
Gators lead again 15-14. Katy’s defense had its back to the wall on the next two series with Dickinson starting at midfield. A sack from LB Garrelts and a big PBU from Garcia saved Katy on these possessions. The Tiger offense was once again slow out of the gate much like it was to start the game and failed to take advantage of the Tiger defense.
A tense 4th quarter
The fourth quarter started with another big special teams blunder from Katy when the Tigers botched an attempted fielding of a punt. This set up Dickinson on the Katy 25 yard line. The Gators scored on a pump and go that beat Katy over the top. 22-14 Dickinson. Katy responded immediately with Gunner hit Izzy open down the seam on Katy’s first deep vertical attempt of the game to narrow the deficit to 22-20. Katy’s defense forced a three and out, and McMillan generated an explosive punt return to set Katy up in the red area. Katy took a 27-22 lead after a tough run from Hill.
Dickinson threatened Katy’s territory after #88 (stud receiver) for the Gators made two first down catches. Ultimately, Katy forced a punt. But guess what happened next. If you guessed the punt bounced off of the Katy return man’s face with Dickinson recovering the ball, you are correct. Dickinson punched in a gifted touchdown from about 10 yards out to retake the lead, 30-27 Gators.
Rebounding from adversity
What happened on the next drive was the defining moment of this game from the Katy perspective in my opinion. This is family board, so I have to use family language, but Gunner Nelson went into big boy football mode. Nelson showed incredible maturity to scramble on consecutive 3rd and 4thdown plays to move the chains for Katy inside Gator territory just inside midfield.
Instead of panicking and forcing a bad throw, he got what he could on both carries and had his helmet pop off on the 4th down scramble. He sat out for a play, and then dropped an absolute dime to Izzy down the seam again to set up Katy within striking distance. The Tigers made no mistakes here and took the lead back, 34-30. I really can’t say enough about what Gunner did on this drive. Maturity, poise, leadership, execution, clutch. Everything you want in your QB1.
Dickinson rebounded immediately by first hitting a double pass, and then they hit #88 on a deep post for a touchdown to go back on top, 37-34. It was way too easy for them on the TD play to #88, and it appeared as though the corner on that side should have had some help over the top. I don’t know if it was blown coverage, but it looked like there was some confusion in the way Katy lined up pre-snap. Either way, this play was emblematic of Katy’s struggles in this game which Dickinson didn’t exploit as fully as it could have. They had 2 or 3 guys Katy could not cover for the most part in #88, #10 and #14.
The two minute warning
Remarkably, the Katy offense dug deep and found more in the tank by executing a balanced drive with some tough running by Hill to take back the lead 41-37 with 1:37 left in the game. It wasn’t over just yet, however, as Dickinson beat Katy deep again to set up deep in Tiger territory immediately. The best thing that happened to the Tiger defense here was getting a short field after being repeatedly beaten deep. Katy ultimately preserved the game on a PBU by McMillan in the endzone on 4th down. Dickinson’s #88 had caught a pass before that, but he was a half a foot to a foot out of bounds fortunately. Tigers win. The Katy faithful breathe again, until next game.
Where do we go from here?
Katy’s been involved in more of these high scoring games in recent seasons and they all seem to follow a similar pattern. This game was like the ones against North Shore, CE King, Summer Creek, Vandegrift, and Jordan last year. Katy is not designed tactically to play in these kinds of games that go off the rails. Tiger football has been designed around the ability to control a game through sound defense and physical dominance in the running game as foundations.
The other part of the foundation is strong fundamentals overall in both sides of the ball and special teams. We’ve seen cracks in the armor in recent seasons, and I mentioned some of what I’d do on offense earlier in the post. Katy’s going to have to get out of the phone booth more this season and do more outside of the tackles and down the field passing wise for sure.
The Tigers are going to need to do more alignment wise so defenses can’t just pin their ears back in junk style fronts and overwhelm us with numbers. Defensively, the most important thing Katy must address from this game is getting beat over the top. Dickinson was lined up in 2 and 3 receiver sets mostly, so you’d think Katy has the players available to help over the top and prevent this. If you are getting spread out in 4 and 5 wide, it’s understandable guys will be singled up. So, whether it is communication, understanding or guys not having the right profile, Katy has to look at that closely and try to identify how to improve.
Moving forward
As a team, you can’t be both physically outmanned and make big errors. Our margin for error is extremely small in this kind of match-up against playoff level opposition. You are just asking for trouble sooner rather than later in the playoffs if you don’t clean these things up. Atascocita is going to apply big time stress on Katy across all the areas we saw exploited in game one, so Katy will need a very committed and purposeful week of preparation to try and improve ahead of game two.
