Nearly two months after Bakersfield College’s football team capped off a 11-2 season by winning the 2012 state championship, coach Jeff Chudy reflected on the aftermath of the victory and what it means for the program.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience for everybody, to be able to play in front of your home crowd, with the crowd that we had,” Chudy said on the feeling after the 31-13 victory over City College of San Francisco on Dec. 8. “It’s an unbelievable feeling, there’s a ton of recognition that we’re getting in a positive way.”
The game drew a crowd of more than 16,000 people.
“We’re definitely grateful to have that kind of experience,” Chudy said. “I guess you can say the stars were aligned for us to be able to play at home and to have the season that we had, you know the momentum that we created during the season and our guys hung in there.”
Chudy also talked about how much positive energy the state title has created for his team. One BC player said to another that he still can’t believe they’re state champions and that he still has to get used to saying that.
With spring practice currently under way, the Renegades are conditioning and weightlifting as they get ready to defend the title this fall.
They will do that without last season’s starting quarterback Brian Burrell, who is currently attending classes at Fresno State and participating in the football team’s spring practice.
Burrell broke his collarbone in the third game of the 2011 season with the Renegades but was able to return for his sophomore year with BC, leading the team to the state championship.
BC suffered two early-season losses to Mt. San Antonio College and Ventura College. Surprisingly, those were the same teams they bumped into again on their road to the state championship in the post season.
“When we played Ventura (the first time), we felt like we gave the game away,” Chudy said. “The officials were a definite impact in that game.”
It was a different story two months later when the two teams met again in Ventura on Nov. 17 at the Beach Bowl. BC came away with a lopsided 48-8 point victory and set themselves up for another meeting with Mt. SAC.
“You can’t look down the road and say we have a chance to play these guys again,” Chudy said. “We just had to fix the little things that we were not doing very well and our guys got better every week and obviously by the end of the year we were playing really well.”
Chudy felt that his team didn’t play well in the first matchup against Mt. SAC, as the Renegade took a 34-14 beating which dropped them to 2-2 on the season at that point.
“We were lucky,” he said. “In football you don’t get those opportunities very often, especially when you’re playing a 10-game season. You know it’s not like the NFL where you’re playing teams twice. You know, even in the Division 1 level you don’t really see that, where a team gets to play another team twice.”
The second time around when the Renegades got another shot at Mt. SAC, they took full advantage with a 30-21 win, back on Nov. 24.
“I was really impressed with how our guys played in the Mt. SAC game,” Chudy said. “Because we didn’t play very well the first time we played them, those guys kind of steamrolled through everybody and to go down there and beat those guys pretty handily, you know at the end of the day and do it the way we did it, where we physically kind of got after them. The way we were able to move the ball offensively up and down the field in the second half was a shock to me.” BC will have signing day for football players who will be attending four-year colleges Feb. 4.