They burst onto the field moments before kickoff, running through a banner that proclaimed, “Welcome to our world.” Rogers spent most of the next 48 minutes showing Salado just how painful and frustrating life against the Eagles can be.
Rogers capped an undefeated district season by shutting down Salado 30-10 Friday night at Eagle Stadium to claim its third District 25-2A title in four seasons. The loss snapped Salado’s 16-game district winning streak and shot at a third straight district title.
It’s been quite a run for Rogers (9-1 overall, 6-0 in 25-2A), which has won eight straight heading into its first playoff berth in two years.
“These kids are starting to believe,” Rogers first-year coach Jeff Walker said. “I told them, ‘If you believe in yourselves, you can do a lot of things.’ We’re starting to believe that we’re a pretty good football team. When you start to do that, it gets kind of scary.”
With both teams having already secured postseason spots, the golden football trophy that goes to the district champion was the only prize at stake Friday.
Salado (7-3, 5-1), a state semifinalist last season, opens the Division I playoffs against No. 6 Altair Rice Consolidated at 7:30 p.m. next Friday at Seguin's Matador Stadium. Rogers is 25-2A’s top seed in the Division II playoffs and will meet an undetermined opponent from 26-2A.
With the game tied at 10 at halftime, Walker’s message was simple. Rogers could move the ball against Salado’s defense, which entered the game as one of the area’s best. The victorious Eagles had 153 rushing yards, including a 71-yard touchdown by Robert Campos, along and a 25-yard field goal by Ben Baecker to show for it.
The only thing left was for Rogers to show how badly it wanted the title.
“(Walker) said, ‘The district championship is y’alls if y’all want it. You just have to go out and do it,'" quarterback Chance Marek said.
Rogers came out and executed a near-perfect drive that did exactly what Walker wanted. It chewed eight minutes off the clock, slowly moving down the field, picking up 2 and 3 yards at a time.
Campos kept the drive alive simply by keeping his feet moving to convert a key third-and-5, picking up 12 of his game-high 166 yards.
“Never quit going, that’s the name of the game,” Campos said. “The more fight you’ve got, the further you’ll go.”
He capped the drive by running untouched up the middle for a 6-yard score that put Rogers up for good 17-10.
“It was important that we came down and ate some clock,” Walker said. “That was the drive of the night, no doubt about it.”
That drive was a back-breaker for a Salado defense that had been so tough against the run for most of the season.
“The series in the second half was a big momentum breaker for us,” Salado coach Jeff Cheatham said. “They took the whole third quarter away from us.”
Salado never recovered. The Eagles followed Rogers’ score with a disastrous drive on their only third-quarter possession.
After that quick four-play drive that could have been worse - punter Garret Ward had to scramble to get off his 23-yard punt to avoid a safety - Rogers had the ball back and put the game away with another methodical drive.
Marek scored on a 3-yard sneak just two minutes into the fourth quarter to give Rogers a two-score lead.
Needing 14 points to tie the game, Salado and quarterback Jerod Lutz went to the air to try for a strike quick.
But that backfired when Marek snagged Lutz’s heave on third-and-8 and returned it 44 yards for a touchdown and 30-10 lead.
“When you get one-dimensional, it plays into the defense’s hand,” Cheatham said.
Salado was held to one of its most frustrating offensive nights of the season. The Eagles totaled 187 yards, including 60 rushing, and committed three turnovers.
Salado led once, late in the first quarter after a 16-yard run by Tyler Wright and a 27-yard field goal by Jace Peralta. But needing scores to keep pace in the second half; Salado had just 26 yards on four possessions.
“Defensively, they had a great plan and did a great job against us,” Cheatham said.
Rogers was able to get pressure on both quarterbacks, Lutz and Ward, along with stopping the run by sending linebacker Tim Weir on blitzes nearly every down.
“That’s the best thing that I’m good at,” Weir said. “I just did what I had to do.”
For a program that went through a player revolt last season and a mid-summer coaching change, Rogers has rebounded quite well.
And now they’ve got the trophy and title to prove it.
“We knew we’d get the offense down and work together,” Weir said. “Nobody else believed that we could."
Said Marek: “Rogers has had a real tradition . . . this year we came back."
rschneider@temple-telegram.com
