The disappointment in the lose at Lexington Friday night will fade fast. Llano played ½ of the game at top speed, and the second half at a notch below. In many cases, that would have been enough. But not from a team that sees very few disappointments over the pass decade. Lexington played with a vengeance in the second half, rolled up nearly 300 yards in the second half, and finished with a 41-33 victory. Llano is now 2-1 for the season, as is Lexington.

The Yellowjacket offense of 449 total yards with a 7.8 yards per snap should have been enough. Yet the defense allowed 467 yards and a 10.8 yards per snap. Not good enough to win.

The Jacket defense has allowed the big play to sap energy from a pretty good defense over-all. TD plays of 61 yards, 51 yards, 25 yards, 26 yards, and 58 yards all were killers. While one of the best quarterbacks Llano will see this season was at the helm for Lexington, Jenner Jones ran for and passed for nearly 400 yards all by himself.

Make no mistake about it, Llano’s pass defense in the secondary needs to continue to improve, and not take any steps backwards. But the most improvement needs to come from the pass rush. The defensive lineman had sacks from Cody Feitz, and Sam Whitaker, and good pressure from Wes Regmund and Tye Siegenthaler. Yet it was still not enough. A quicker step from the front defensive lineman will stop a lot of those long lazy passes from falling into streaking arms. Llano just made it too easy for the Eagles. Llano’s two interceptions were heads up play by Lance Dickey and Seth Simpson.

The Jackets 9 penalties and three fumbles also were a big minus. The lapses in concentration caused this lose. Not lack of effort on behalf of the Jackets.

The best thing this team can do now is put the learning lesson of Lexington behind them, and concentrate on Taylor. Taylor is 1-2 this season, and they are a large 3AAA school, with much talent. Llano has lost to Taylor now three years in a row. Last year’s lose in Taylor was not pretty. It is time for the Jackets to step up the pace, and no better place than beating a sound football program like the Taylor Ducks playing in Llano this Friday night.

The Jacket offense continues to amaze. Good line blocking from Seth Hensley, Cory Wunderlich, Jared Francis, Michael Anderson and Andrew Ratliff allowed Thurman, Dickey, Regmund and Brooks to all average near 5 yards and more per try. With the running game setting up the passes, Brooks was able to complete 6 of 10 passes for 95 yards, with 4 catches by Walker Woolman, and two by Regmund. Trey has now thrown 5 TD passes this year in three games, four to Walker!

TAYLOR:
2000 Llano 12 Taylor 32
2001 Llano 21 Taylor 23
2006 Llano 0 Taylor 21

The Llano loss was disappointing. Jacket backers were sure hoping a win against a good football team would spur this team onward to that ultimate goal of winning district. Beating Taylor Friday night would accomplish the same.

Llano 20 Taylor 13