Three games in and the Central Alberta Buccaneers are about where most people had them pegged.
The Bucs bounced back on Saturday from their previous week’s whooping at the hands of the Calgary Gators to beat the Grande Prairie Drillers 37-16 in Grande Prairie.
The win leaves the Buccaneers tied with the St. Albert Stars in third place in the Alberta Football League at 2-1.
However, head coach Devon Hand says they are only going to get better as the season progresses.
“The season is still early, we have a lot of work to do,” he said. “We’re a little banged up on both sides of the ball so we have to work with that. I’m content but by no means pleased, there’s still so much to do.”
The biggest challenge the Bucs have faced this year is integrating a brand new offence. They went from a ground-and-pound system in previous years to attempting to go to more of a spread offence this year, and it has been a struggle.
With two brand new quarterbacks in Pascal Plante and Jamie Fox, neither has managed to go the distance in a game this year. Plante started the first two games but after ineffectiveness was replaced in both games by Fox who had more success. Fox got the start in Grande Prairie but was replaced by Plante in the second half.
“It was by design (on Saturday) it wasn’t because of performance,” said Hand. “We figured out there’s some things the different quarterbacks do better. As opposed to taking a square peg and putting it into a round hole, we’re going to modify the offence to suit their strengths and go with that.”
One big change on Saturday is the Bucs started to lean more heavily on their ground game which was all but ignored in their 50-6 Week 2 loss to the Gators in Lacombe. Through two games, they had ran the ball for just 132 yards.
This effectively took their biggest weapon, AFL offensive rookie of the year and defending rushing champion Junior Rivera, out of the game.
On Saturday, he combined with Tanner Green to run for more than 200 yards.
“When we got there, they had a short bench so with our physical attack on the ground it opened things up and we were able to kill their will and impose our will on them,” said Hand.
Defence, as expected, has been their biggest strength all season, but are now starting to get banged up.
On the weekend back up defensive back Riley Raines stepped to the forefront and broke up a couple of passes and had a big one-handed interception that set up a key touchdown for the Bucs.
“It was good to see the next-man-up philosophy work,” said Hand.
Perhaps the biggest improvement from Week 2 is they did not panic when they struggled to get much going early. Against the Gators they went into self-destruct mode in the second quarter once Calgary started get some momentum going their way.
“It wasn’t a perfect game, we were still sloppy in some facets, but we were composed when we were challenged,” said Hand. “When the offence wasn’t moving the ball or we gave up a big play and we faced some adversity, we were able to maintain composure and then persevere when it mattered. “
The Buccaneers are in Edmonton to play an improved Stallions club on Saturday. The Stallions (1-1) have struggled in recent years to compete with the top teams in the AFL, but their rebuilding program is starting to bare fruit and are coming off a decisive 28-14 win over the expansion Airdrie Irish.
“We’re not going to take anyone lightly at this point, we’re not good enough to do that,” said Hand. “We’re going to show up and be as physical as possible and we’re going to try and steal a win in Edmonton.”
The AFL has a league-wide bye week for the first week of July, but the Bucs return to play on July 11 with their second home game of the year at Lacombe ME Global Athletic Park against the Lloydminster Vandals (0-3).