Tyrone Caufield sees an opportunity.
He and his teammates had just stepped off Coleman Field on Monday, after their first practice back since their first loss of the season last Friday, but the Bronchos’ junior receiver was already focused forward.
Odessa High lost a one-point nail-biter to Lubbock Coronado last week, but Monday, Caufield looked ahead, and saw a chance to right a few wrongs there on the horizon.
The Bronchos have one more nondistrict game left to play against Abilene High at 7 p.m. Thursday inside Shotwell Stadium in Abilene.
“We look at this game as a game for momentum,” Caufield said.
“We want this game to be momentum for the start of district.”
Odessa High sits 2-1, after starting the season with victories against Lubbock Monterey and Amarillo High, before last Friday’s first loss.
After Thursday, though, the Bronchos open District 2-6A play Sept. 29 at Amarillo Tascosa, for their first of six league games to close the season.
District play will determine whether Odessa High makes the playoffs — and whether the Bronchos can carry their school into the postseason for just the 15th time in nearly 100 years of football.
Simply put, after Thursday, the Bronchos start playing for keeps.
“This is the last rehearsal, so to speak,” Odessa High head coach Danny Servance said Monday. “Then from here on, it all counts.
“We’re trying to make sure that we’ve got all our I’s dotted and all our T’s crossed, and make sure that we’re playing at a high level when it’s time to start district play.”
Odessa High will hope to springboard into the district season with a victory over winless Abilene High.
If the Bronchos defeat Abilene High and move to 3-1, Odessa High will enter district play with a winning record for the first time since Bradley Marquez’s senior season in 2010. Marquez is the school’s career rushing record holder, and a member of three Bronchos playoff teams, currently on injured reserve with the Los Angeles Rams.
>> DIFFERENT FEELING: To an outsider sitting in Ratliff Stadium Friday, seeing the Bronchos step off the field after their tough loss, it might’ve seemed like they just fell into a familiar space.
After all, the Bronchos had lost 15 games to enter this season, going winless in 2016.
But this didn’t feel the same for the Bronchos.
This one wasn’t the same as their last defeat, or any of their losses in 2016.
Friday night, Odessa High expected to win.
“To me, it felt worse, because we knew we could’ve won that game,” Caufield said.
Odessa High fared much better against the same Lubbock Coronado team that beat the Bronchos 63-14 in 2016 — but for the current group, that just made Friday’s defeat sting even worse.
“Just letting that game slip away — it just felt like your heart just ripped out of your chest, because we knew that we could win, and we were in the situations to win, but we just didn’t capitalize on it,” Caufield said.
Monday, the Bronchos got back to the practice field to start working to erase that feeling.
“It’s a push,” senior linebacker Tony Carrasco said. “It’s a push for us to get better.”
Fellow linebacker Michael Gonzalez said he has seen his teammates take those steps after last Friday.
“I mean, be mad that we lost, but we’re getting better,” Gonzalez added. “From where we were last year to where we are now — we’re getting better.”
The Bronchos didn’t waste any time applying what they learned from that defeat out on the practice field.
Still winded from late-practice sprints, Caufield said he and his teammates embraced the chance to get in better condition to win games decided late in the fourth quarter, like the close one last Friday.
“Just learning how to finish — and learning how to finish starts off with practices,” Caufield said. “You’ve got to finish your practices first before you can start finishing in a game. It’ll carry over into the game.”
>> IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS: Odessa High outgained Lubbock Coronado last Friday in total yards on the stat sheet.
The Bronchos rolled up 327 yards of offense compared to the Mustangs’ 271.
At no point through the game did the Mustangs truly appear a length better than the Bronchos.
But in a one-point game, Odessa High was hurt with a missed extra point, two failed field goals, two fumbles given away on punt returns, and key penalties.
No, there weren’t any major struggles, but in a one-point game, the small things cost Odessa High.
“It’s little things,” Servance agreed Monday, looking back to last Friday. “We always talk about all the little things make big things. So we’ve got to get those small things corrected.
“Good football teams do the small things right. We’re headed in that direction, so those are some of the things that we kind of emphasize, that we’ve got to get better at those little bitty things.”
Odessa High’s muffed punt late in the third quarter led directly to Lubbock Coronado’s go-ahead touchdown to make it 21-20 early in the fourth.
In the second quarter, the Bronchos seemed poised to go into the halftime break leading 20-7, but a muffed punt there gave the Mustangs the ball on the Odessa High 17-yard line, leading to a score to make it 20-14.
Even after the Bronchos were down, they drove to the Lubbock Coronado nine-yard line in the final minutes, down one with a chance to go ahead with a score. But that’s when a holding call on a run play pulled Odessa High back to the 19-yard line.
The Bronchos’ potential game-winning field goal from 33 yards out was then deflected at the line, allowing the Mustangs to run out the remaining 1:39.
“We didn’t execute the small things like special teams, so I think that’s a big thing we need to work on,” Carrasco said.
“We’re just trying to go back to the simple things, just execute the small stuff, everyone do what they’re supposed to do, and try to get the win,” Gonzalez added.
Still, the Bronchos said, there hasn’t been any finger-pointing going on in the Odessa High locker room.
“We can’t just pick a fight with some people because they messed up,” Carrasco said. “We’re a team, so we’ve got to pick each other up so we can play as a whole and win a game.”
That’s something different from last season, Carrasco said.
“Big time. Last year it was a lot of frustration because of the losses and we didn’t know how to react.”
This week, Odessa High has worked on more of those little things — trying to take more steps toward being a winning team.
