Columbus started its 2022 season just about the exact opposite of how any football program would want to, an 0-4 start with just six total points scored.
The Falcons, riding an inexperienced lineup and a critical injury to their starting quarterback, saw little to no success early on, and teams pounced on them.
Non-district play was no doubt a tough pill for Columbus to swallow, but boy how things have changed over the past four weeks.
That 0-4 team has gone 3-1 in district play and is now in the driver’s seat with three games left to go, the first of which comes against Saltillo, fighting for its playoff life at 2-2 in district play.
“Every level of football is different,” Columbus head coach Joshua Pulphus said. “For those guys to practice and learn how fast the game was against that 6A competition, it allowed them to slow the game down a lot more in division play.”
The early-season jitters that plagued the Falcons have seemingly dissipated as the younger players on the roster have matured into their roles on the field.
Silly mistakes on both sides of the ball have begun to minimize and Columbus is playing a great brand of football, one that is scoring just under 21 points a game offensively.
As the offense goes, the defense has followed, giving 11.3 points per game in the Falcons’ three wins this season.
“The young kids on the team, their learning curve has been different,” Pulphus said. “One thing is that the kids have done a great job at buying in and seeing their mistakes, but more importantly, going out and fixing their mistakes.”
That buy-in from the players, especially the younger players, has translated more and more as the season has matured.
Being able to understand the flow of the game early on, while that didn’t translate into victories, it prepared Columbus for what to expect in big games like Friday.
“Things have been feeling great,” defensive back Deroyce Williams Jr. said. “Things are locking in. We’re focusing on the small things and we’re correcting those small problems. That’s what’s led us to where we are now in district play.”
Saltillo comes into Columbus just as hungry as the Falcons, with the Tigers sitting a game behind them in the district standings.
Having come into the same district as the Falcons in 2019, the two teams have played just three times head to head, with Columbus a perfect 3-0 against them.
That definitely gives the Falcons confidence and momentum coming up, but don’t think that isn’t lighting a fire under Saltillo, who’s been waiting for four years now to defeat Columbus, and that win would come on the road if they got things done this season.
“We just have to be 1-0 every week,” lineman Hemyar Nagi said. “We know that they’re a great team, and they’re trying to get the same thing as us, trying to get into the playoffs. We just have to come out Friday night and be ready.”
With how the past four weeks have gone for Columbus, the Falcons are more than ready for a Friday night battle at home in their biggest game of the 2022 season to date.
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