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After missing the first month of the season due to a broken foot, McAllen Memorial wide receiver DJ Johnson admitted he was rusty when he made his return in Week 4 against Edinburg North.
A second-team all-district pick in 2013, Johnson caught just one pass for 16 yards. He was targeted four times in the game, and on Memorial’s second drive dropped what looked to be a sure touchdown pass.
Four weeks later, the rust is gone. Johnson caught two passes for 66 yards and two touchdowns in a Week 7 win against McAllen Rowe, then followed that up with three catches for 72 yards and another score on Thursday in a 45-7 win against La Joya Juarez-Lincoln.
“I don’t think the foot is bothering him any,” McAllen Memorial coach Bill Littleton said. “He seems to be 100 percent from it.”
Littleton said Johnson looks as fast as he did last season, when he led the Mustangs with 15 catches for 302 yards and four touchdowns.
All the receiver needed was time to get back into rhythm, Littleton said. Johnson could do practically nothing athletic after breaking the foot during an offseason basketball game.
“Practice time is what brought him along,” Littleton said. “He’s getting better. He’s catching the ball better than what he did that first week. He’s always a threat out there.”
PASSING TEST
The PSJA High defense, ranked No. 2 in District 32-5A statistically and in the top five in the Valley, got a different kind of test when it hosted Brownsville Pace on Thursday.
Having faced teams that exclusively run the ball to get their points, the Bears welcomed a Vikings team that averaged 148 passing yards and had the second-best quarterback in the district in Alex Cisneros. It didn’t go as well as Pace would have liked, but the
Bears got a look at how the defense responded when a team tried to beat them over the top.
“They challenged us,” PSJA High coach Steve Marroquin said after the Bears’ 42-14 win. “They challenged us through the air. I thought it was a great game plan on their part. But we trusted our reads and keys and our kids played great.”
The Bears, who have allowed just 85.6 passing yards per game, allowed 121 passing yards as Vikings quarterbacks Cisneros and Arturo Vilano combined to complete just 11 of 33 passes.
The Bears’ Eric Castillo and Christian Sanchez each collected interceptions and returned them for touchdowns. In all, PSJA High had three takeaways in building a 35-7 advantage by the third quarter.
PSJA High’s linebackers and secondary are only likely to be tested once more this regular season. The Bears play Mercedes, the district’s top passing team, on Oct. 24.
FINDING BALANCE
Offensively, Roma has struggled this season. The tipping points, perhaps, came Friday in a 14-0 loss to Mission Veterans Memorial.
It marked the Gladiators’ first shutout defeat of the year, further drawing attention to an offense that has yet to put up points at an average rate.
In 11 offensive drives last week, Roma went three-and-out four times. In five other instances, the Gladiators earned only one first down, giving Mission Veterans plenty of opportunity to milk the clock.
“We can’t keep doing that,” coach Max Habecker Jr. said. “At the end of the day, we’ve got to do a better job of sustaining drives.”
Part of it the issue? Roma’s passing game.
In Week 8, the Gladiators offense racked up 133 yards, 34 coming in the air. R.J. Garza completed 4 of 13 passes, trying to spread out the offense, though Roma had difficulty doing that on a consistent basis.
“I think that’s probably our biggest problem right now,” Habecker said. “Our running backs ran hard (last week) but it’s tough to do with nine guys in the box. So we have to have that pass threat to get people to back off. And we’re working on that.
“We tried to push the ball vertically and throw some passes, but we’re just not connecting right now. And we just have to keep working on it, because we have three more weeks and that’s a long time. Three more games to go. We’re not going to hang our heads or stop practicing hard. We’re going to do everything we can to keep improving every day.”