GERONIMO — Navarro finally gets a Friday night without a football game this week.
The Panthers have reached their bye after closing non-district play with a victory in the debut of their new home stadium. Their next time under the lights will carry considerably different stakes, with district play beginning Oct. 9 at Pearsall.
Before then, head coach Glenn Hill wants to make use of every day Navarro has in between.
“We’re not just chilling. We’re not taking the week off,” Hill said. “We’re out there practicing and watching film and lifting weights, and they’re taking pride in that.”
Photos Courtesy of Seguin Gazette
Five games have given Hill and his staff their first substantial body of work to evaluate. Navarro enters its bye at 3-1-1, with four games played to completion and another ending in a tie because of lightning.
That stretch has given the Panthers enough evidence to identify what suits them on offense, defense and special teams — and what may need to be discarded before district play.
“The first thing is we learned a whole lot about ourselves in a positive way,” Hill said. “We’re finding what our strengths are offensively, defensively, special teams, and now it’s time to hone in on those things. Let’s double down on it.”
Not every preseason idea has survived that evaluation.
Hill said there were schemes Navarro entered the season believing would suit the Panthers that haven’t produced the desired results. Rather than stubbornly sticking with them, the coaching staff is using the open week to make adjustments before the games begin counting toward the district standings.
The split, Hill estimated, is about 50-50 between reinforcing Navarro’s established identity and tweaking what hasn’t worked.
“This is us. This is our DNA,” Hill said. “Whether it’s going good or bad right now, this has to be us, and we’re leaning into that really heavily.”
Among Navarro’s areas of emphasis are protecting the football, creating more takeaways and continuing to improve its tackling in space.
The Panthers saw progress in the latter during their most recent victory. Navarro defines an explosive play as one gaining at least 15 yards and allowed only two such plays last week.
Hill wants that standard to carry into district.
So does the focus his team displayed during an emotional night in Geronimo.
Navarro’s previous game brought circumstances unlike any other on its schedule as the Panthers opened their new stadium in front of what Hill believed may have been the largest home crowd in school history.
Amid the excitement, Hill’s message to his players was simple: play football.
“I think we were locked in,” Hill said. “Had a great week of practice, and going into a game plan, we knew it’d be a tough opponent with all the hoopla surrounding opening up a new stadium and there’s a bunch of excitement and buzz around it. We just made sure that we need to focus on our job, and that’s play football.”
Sophomore R.J. Pates helped make the stadium’s debut memorable.
Pates scored the first touchdown in the new venue and later supplied the night’s final score, continuing an early-season emergence that has impressed his coach on both sides of the football.
Hill said some of Pates’ runs look almost impossible when reviewed on film.
“There’s some plays you’re watching on film, and it almost looks like it’s a video game glitch,” Hill said. “Like, how did he possibly just get through those three people? And he does, and he’s got some getaway speed when he does break away.”
Pates has been just as valuable at cornerback, where Navarro frequently trusts the sophomore in one-on-one coverage.
Asked whether Pates has been better offensively or defensively, Hill didn’t bother choosing.
“Both,” he said. “We’ll keep him out there.”
Now Navarro gets a week to build on performances like his before beginning the portion of the schedule that will determine its postseason fate.
Pearsall isn’t Navarro’s primary focus quite yet, although the Panthers haven’t ignored their upcoming opponent either.
While Navarro is idle Friday, Pearsall plays Ingram Moore. Hill and his staff have already taken preliminary looks at Pearsall’s film and plan to study Friday’s game Saturday morning before beginning their full game plan.
That fresh film could reinforce what Navarro’s coaches already believe about their district-opening opponent.
Or, as Hill put it, they might have to “completely erase the whiteboard and start over.”
Either way, Pearsall can wait a few more days.
This week is about Navarro.
Hill doesn’t even want his players thinking of the bye as the midpoint of their season.
“This is not midseason, even though this is the fifth week of the year,” Hill said. “Our intentions are to play beyond 10 games, so can’t let this be our midseason.”
For a program with ambitions of playing well into November, the calendar matters less than whether the Panthers are better when they leave the bye than when they entered it.
“No days off, no periods of practice off,” Hill said. “We got to attack everything.”
And then it’s on to Pearsall.