California to bid for its first win as it hosts Mexico

California teammates Drake Schlup and Tucker Friedmeyer celebrate after Schlup scored the Pintos' first touchdown of the season last Friday night against Lighthouse Christian.
California teammates Drake Schlup and Tucker Friedmeyer celebrate after Schlup scored the Pintos' first touchdown of the season last Friday night against Lighthouse Christian.

CALIFORNIA - Coming off of a tough 48-12 loss to Lighthouse Christian on the first game of the season, the California Pintos are looking for their first win as they get set to head on the road to face the Mexico Bulldogs (0-1).

The Bulldogs are coming off a 20-0 loss to Southern Boone last week.

California head coach Derek Scroggins said Mexico has good size on both sides of the ball. On defense, the Bulldogs will use a three-man defensive front while the offensive line features several talented players.

"We expect them to be big and strong," Scroggins said.

When it comes to offense, Scroggins said Mexico likes to run the ball around 90 percent of the time which is much different than their first opponents in Lighthouse Christian, who threw the ball the majority of the game.

"It will be a vast change from what we saw last week," Scroggins said.

In their opener, turnovers where a big problem for the Pintos as they had two fumbles on pitches and five passes intercepted.

The team has been working on trying to cut down the amount of giveaways heading into this week's game.

"We did not have any true fumbles, we fumbled two different pitches and both of those were mental mistakes that I think we can avoid," Scroggins said. "On the five interceptions, one of them was a 50/50 ball on third and long which I don't really have a problem with (Lighthouse's) defensive back just made a good play and took it over our receiver.

"On another one it was fourth and 10 and we threw a 12-yard route. It was not a good ball, but I understand why the quarterback forcing it there on fourth down. Three of them were just bad throws off the back foot and so we have been working on making sure we are going through our progressions and following through on our throws."

Even though the team only scored 12 points in their loss to Lighthouse Christian, California did show it can drive down the field on offense. But turnovers ended a majority of their drives.

Heading into the game, Scroggins said the team is going to try to work on their execution.

"We are just going to try to execute and tighten the screws each day this week in practice and be ready to go," Scroggins said.

Related Media: California Pintos Football Podcast [Mexico preview, Sept. 6, 2019]