Westlake is no easy opponent for the Trojans. They’re 49-1 in their last 50 games over a 3-and-a-half season stretch leading up to this game and won 66-17 in last year’s matchup. Even so, no team is perfect, no team is unbeatable, and for a Trojan team looking to sneak into the playoffs sometimes you have to do the unthinkable. To figure out how the Trojans can do this, I looked into what North Shore did against the Chaps in last year’s state semifinal matchup.
The number one key to beating Westlake is to Force the Chaps to throw the ball. In last year’s game against North Shore, Westlake’s Brett Skinner completed just 13 of 34 passes. While he did throw for 254 yards and 2 touchdowns, he had a pair of turnovers, an INT, and a fumble. The bigger picture though, is that Skinner was not who the Chaps wanted to run their offense through, but down 35-19 early in the second half, had to turn to him for a comeback.
This year, Westlake has mainly split the reps under center between senior Paxton Land and sophomore Rees Wise, but regardless of which guy is in at quarterback, the play has been more pedestrian than one might expect. Both QBs have completion percentages in the low to mid-50s, and, as a team, Westlake’s only passing for 146 yards per game, compared to almost 200 yards on the ground each week. One thing they do extremely well though is take care of the ball (1 INT this season). Anderson likely won’t have the benefit of an early lead to help them force the Chaps into dropbacks. Instead, they’ll have to excel at another thing…
The Trojans need to Stop The Run. That’s how they force Westlake to pass. The Chaps feature a talented backfield spearheaded by senior running backs Jack Kayser and Nathan Acosta. The two have combined for 566 yards and over 113 yards a game this season, and are complemented by both the QBs, (140 yards, 3 touchdowns) in the run game rather nicely. However, their rushing attack isn’t nearly as electric as Buda’s and is certainly stoppable if the Trojans can attack it correctly.
Last week against Del Valle, while Westlake did run for 7 touchdowns, they only ran for 4.9 yards per carry, and Kayser had a ypc clip of just 2.7. Del Valle is easily one of the bottom two teams in the district, meaning that the Westlake run offense is certainly stoppable. The easiest way for the Trojans to do that would be to load the box more, and whether that means bringing in extra down linemen and linebackers, or simply moving some of the safeties into the box on plays, the focus should be on shutting down the run early.
Overall, Westlake’s gaining 330.6 total yards per game this season, which is down from 386 a year ago, and even further from 498.2 when they won the state championship in 2021. While Westlake is still a very good team, much like the University of Alabama this year, the Chaps lack some offensive firepower, leaving them more vulnerable to an upset.
Winning the field position battle is also huge for a potential upset bid against Westlake. Just because the Chaps don’t have their most potent offense ever, that doesn’t mean they’re not scoring. Westlake may be down 170 yards a game from two years ago, but they’re still scoring a similar amount of points per game (44.0, down from 50.9). Pinning Westlake deep in their own territory to start drives off punts and limiting turnovers will force them to go all the way down the field every drive. As long as the Trojans don’t give up a ton of big plays, this will limit the Chaps’ scoring and give Anderson the best chance to win.
When they have the ball, Anderson absolutely has to run the ball effectively. In last year’s loss to North Shore, Westlake gave up over 300 yards on the ground. Although the Trojans don’t have a running back like North Shore’s Rashaad Johnson who steamrolled the Chaps for 138 yards and 3 touchdowns, they do have Brady Gephart, a quarterback who’s excelled running the ball this season. David Amador (North Shore), the only QB to beat Westlake over the past few seasons ran for 112 yards in the semifinal utilizing a mix of designed QB runs and another type of play that I think could be a huge factor for the Trojans this week.
The RPO should be used early and often on Thursday by the Trojan offense. North Shore showed its effectiveness, using it quite a few times en route to beating Westlake. While Ben Hatcher has only carried the ball 15 times this season, he’s the best choice to run the option with Gephart because he’s got speed unrivaled by the rest of the Trojan backfield. This will hopefully bring Westlake’s safeties up enough for Gephart to take a few shots down the field later in the game when he needs to.
Screen passes to Ed Small, Zayden Sharp, and Tristan Waidelich are de facto run plays that don’t put pressure on the offensive line to push the Westlake defensive line back and will be good changes of pace to keep the defense honest. Westlake has five different players with an interception this season, so keeping the secondary’s chances to force a turnover to a minimum is necessary.
The biggest challenge of beating Westlake is the battle of the trenches. It’s Anderson’s O-Line vs. the Chaps front seven, and if the Trojan blockers can’t put up a good fight, then nothing else I said about the offense matters. To take some of the pressure off of them, having extra blockers could be vital for the Trojans. Although Anderson runs their offense almost out of the spread, the use of H-backs or tight ends for both run and pass blocking, as well as running backs in pass protection could be vital.
Putting Gephart on the run and having him get the ball out quickly are also tools that Coach Napoli and the offense could use to avoid the immense pressure that Brady is going to be under on virtually every play. On each of his touchdowns vs. Bowie, Gephart got the ball out in under 3 seconds, and holding on to it any longer would’ve likely resulted in sacks. The Trojans need to limit big negative plays on offense, as, turnovers aside, they’re the biggest drive killers.
Westlake is a tough opponent, there’s no way around that, but they’re not the unbeatable powerhouse they’ve been in the past. The Trojans haven’t beaten the Chaps in the Max Preps era (2004-present), but Austin High beat Bowie last week, and the Trojans are due for an upset of their own. I’m not saying Anderson’s going to win, but don’t circle this one as another Westlake blowout on your calendar.
