Stories help prepare San Marcos for postseason experience

During this time of the year, John Walsh’s wife doesn’t see him much. 

Postseason football in Texas is one of the biggest high school tournaments in the country. Teams across the state finally reached the point they set out to reach at the beginning of the year, especially a team that was promised to make it there. Just a week removed from clinching the program's first playoff berth since 2017, San Marcos’ head coach knew he had to be locked in on the weeks to come after making it to this point. 

He’s so locked in, he sacrifices time with family to study film and prepare. But it’s nothing the Walsh family isn’t accustomed to. 

“Really she hasn’t (seen me). Saturday and Sunday, we put in 12-13 hour days,” Walsh said. “But you know what? My wife's used to it. She's gone six weeks without seeing me for this, so she's used to it.”

Considering it's been four years since the Rattlers have made it this far in the season, none of the players on the team have any playoff experience whatsoever. Most of the homegrown kids have seen the past successes of the team and want to copy that exact sentiment in their postseason run.

The issue San Marcos (5-5) has with that is going up against a team that went four rounds deep last year. Austin Vandegrift (9-1) defeated last year's 26-6A fourth-place team, Austin High, 45-24 in the first round. The Vipers later fell to 26-6A’s third-place team, Buda Hays, 38-10. 

The two-time state champion coach and his staff have been down this road before. His players, not so much. But when you have a state championship-winning staff, you can share your experiences with the players and that experience may be enough. 

“Telling them stories, you know, they know that our staffs been in the playoffs. We talk about painting that picture all season long. Well, I gotta paint a good playoff picture and I started tonight by letting them know, ‘I know we usually celebrate these things for a long time. Forget about this, we’ll talk about making the playoffs at the banquet. Let's talk about Vandegrift right now.’ And so just relying on my experience and our staff's experience and feeding that into their brains.”

Stories have gotten the Rattlers through the week and it seems to be working, especially for the seniors who may play their last games for San Marcos this Friday. In practice, you hear shouts from senior tight end Elijah Pearson trying to motivate the team to get better each rep. He wants everyone on the same page just as much as the coaches. 

“Those are things that need to be said,” Pearson explained. “We were lacking early in the season but it is different now. It's really important for the whole team to be on the same page. I'm just letting everyone know not to be selfish. It's not about yourself, it's about the team and trying to get a win together.”

The Vipers defense has been a problem for all of its opponents except Round Rock, who handed Vandegrift its first loss of the season, 38-20, in the regular season finale. Other than that it’s been a defensive clinic by the Vipers. Six of their 10 opponents scored were held to single-digit points and only Round Rock and Stony Point scored 20 or more against them. 

“They run a very complex defense that, if you break it down, becomes simpler once you become familiar,'' Walsh said. “When I first started watching it, it was complex. The more I watched it, the simpler it got. But you can tell they're well-coached, and they're going somewhere with a purpose. We gotta make sure we know where they're going and not run into any of their run blitzes.”

Running the ball is exactly what the San Marcos offense has to do if they want to win. It’s the unit’s recipe. In all six of the Rattlers’ wins this season, they’ve rushed for three or more touchdowns. They will have to avoid Vandegrift’s blitzes or find a game plan to overcome the stout defense of the Vipers. That starts with junior quarterback Isaiah DeLeon who has to make the right reads most of the time. His decision making on the ground has boosted his stat line almost every week, with four games of 100-plus yards in the last five weeks. He’s also averaging two touchdowns on the ground in that same period. 

In practice, the tempo and overall movement of the team have even more emphasis. DeLeon talked about the team's mentality this week.

“I think from the players to the coaches, it's been a lot more — not cutthroat, but just more attention to detail,'' DeLeon said. “Trying to just get everything to perfection and as good as possible.”

The perfection in the program even oozed down to the scout team. The Rattlers are locked in. 

“It’s huge because, you know, their season's over. So they're having to come to practice and not play a game,” Walsh said. “For my 28 years, even in the years that we were making title runs, that's still a struggle for a JV kid, going, ‘Hang on, what am I doing?’ They just have to buy into the program. They know their time is coming, but they have to give us great looks for us to have success. And they have done a great job this week.”

San Marcos will visit Vandegrift in Austin on Nov. 12 with kickoff set for 7 p.m. inside Ed. W. Memorial Stadium. A win for San Marcos would tremendously boost the team's morale heading into the second round of the playoffs. A loss would still make this the most successful season in four years and give the juniors a new goal to reach in their final season in the purple and white. 

A win would also guarantee Walsh’s wife to be without him one more week.