Fresno City College football team faces scoring issues despite early success
Scoring points has been a recent problem for the Fresno City College football team.
That wasn’t the case when the Rams started the season combining to score 77 points, both wins by landslide over Diablo Valley and Sierra.
Lately?
In the past four games, Fresno City combined to score 74 points.
Rams coach Tony Caviglia cites playing better defenses, but quarterback Ryan Markarian sees it differently.
“We been in a little slump on offense,” he said. “We just got to pick it up and be better. We haven’t been converting much on third down. If you look at the early in the season, we were converting on a lot on third down. We haven’t been doing that as well lately.”
And Markarian cites a bigger problem:
“Just getting in the red zone,” he said. “Moving the ball is not a problem. We get in the red zone a lot, but we don’t end up scoring. We’ll get in the red zone and miss a kick or we get in the end zone and it gets called back because of a penalty. We should’ve put up more points. We’re all frustrated.”
The Rams’ offense is backed by the defense, which is ranked second in the state in points allowed with 11.2 points per game.
Fresno City (5-1) hopes its stingy defense continues and that the offense comes around quickly especially with a rare Valley Conference opener against Modesto.
Kickoff is set for 1 p.m. Saturday.
The Rams and Pirates usually play the last conference game that determines the champion.
Not this time.
That is why this big has a lot riding on it.
Modesto’s offense ranks 25th in the state, scoring 30.4 points per game. Fresno City is 43rd at 24.0 points per game.
The Rams offense knows they have to score plenty to come out on top against Modesto.
“We just have to capitalize on our opportunities,” Rams wide receiver Nahzae Cox said. “Just be more productive. The red zone is a big part of the game. I just think we got to go out there and believe in each other with more chemistry. We just got to go out there and be ourselves. We haven’t been ourselves the last couple weeks.
“Whatever the play call is called, just accept it and go out there and score no matter what play it is. We have a good offense and a lot of weapons and we just got to go out there and score.”
This story was originally published October 17, 2024 at 12:06 PM.
