Live Oak would love nothing more than to go 3-0 through the nonleague season to set up a run at the Mt. Hamilton Division.
After a win last week thanks to a dominant performance from Jacob Ryder, the Acorns are well on their way with Sobrato and Gilroy standing in their way.
Sobrato is smarting from a game that got away against Gilroy and a win that was taken away against Overfelt. A win against its rival would erase those bad vibes and make a statement to the Santa Teresa Division.
“It was a little bit unexpected, but it happened,” said coach Tony Holmes. “The kids understand that and they’re ready to move forward.”
The Bulldogs also want nothing more than to avenge a 65-0 loss to Live Oak last year.
The Acorns enter the game with an 8-1 advantage over Sobrato.
But this is this year.
“We’re not last year’s team. They know it and we told them don’t worry about last year,” said Live Oak coach Mike Gemo. “We’re not the 9-1 team we were last year and we’ve got to prove every week that we can be a 9-1 team again.”
Holmes tried to underscore the rivalry, noting that his main focus is to be ready for league play that will start up in two weeks. He said it is hard to completely escape it, but wanted to stress to his boys to keep things friendly and get after the Acorns like they would any other opponent.
“We support Live Oak in the same way I know Live Oak supports us. Just not when we’re playing together,” Holmes said.
Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Live Oak.
Sobrato is eager to get into the win column after its Week 1 victory was vacated because of an ineligible player.
“We have the ability to go out and compete. For this next game the kids’ attitudes have been really positive,” Holmes said. “Everything that we’ve been doing (for practice) … we have a full roster of guys getting after it. So that’s a good thing.”
Live Oak is coming off a 35-14 win over Christopher in its first game. The Acorns had to overcome some early nerves
“It was nice that our kids settled down and got their feet under them and took control of the game like we knew that they could,” Gemo said. “Going forward, we’ve got to play football. We’re just looking for play makers and it’s nice we had some kids make plays besides Ryder.”
Ryder rushed for 212 yards and five touchdowns against Christopher.
“Let’s be honest with ourselves: We’re not going to stop him. But we have to find a way to slow him down. If we can do that, I think we can offensively put up enough points to make this a good game and make this a game that is worth everyone watching.”
Holmes said he thinks his boys match up well against the rest of Live Oak’s team which makes slowing down Ryder that much more important.
For Live Oak, Cole Davis had 62 yards rushing to complement Ryder with John Singleton throwing for 132 yards on 13 of 25 passing.
Sobrato enters the game after a 49-27 loss to Gilroy after giving up 542 yards on the ground.
Live Oak will not attack Sobrato in the same way the Mustangs did, but the Acorns showed last week it was strongly potent in the run game thanks to the effort put forth up front.
“Our offensive line for being a little undersized, they took those bigger kids from Christopher and were moving them around and giving (Ryder) some nice holes,” Gemo said.
On the other end, the Acorn defensive line will have to likewise stand tall going against John Bell, who Gemo described as a tall, athletic playmaker.
Sobrato did have trouble against Gilroy’s defense, which Live Oak hopes to duplicate.
“Gilroy looked pretty fast up front and got into the back field quiet a bit. We’re going to try to do the same thing,” Gemo said.
Conversely, Holmes said he is looking for his line to be a little more stout.
“We hope that we can show a better force up front. When we look at stats, we’ve forced 76 points in two games, but we’ve also allowed 73,” Holmes said.
If we can establish a better defensive front, this week, that would make us extremely happy.”
He added he is looking to his special teams to provide a spark, citing how they have scored in the two previous games.
