BSU Football Interview
On Wednesday, September 22nd I sat down with key members of the Bridgewater State University Football Team. I wanted to talk with the team after the rough start this season. I sat down with wide receiver Kyle Torres-Granados (Senior), Defensive Lineman Louis Casey (Senior), and Linebacker Brendan Albert (Junior).
First, I just wanted to get their thoughts about the season as a whole. After not playing last year due to COVID, I asked them how the team and coaching have been so far. Torres, had a pretty good feeling about the season so far saying, ” I can’t complain you know? We got two losses, but like it’s alright, we’re going to bounce back from that. Last game we got a win. We just got to keep focused.” Casey had a similar feeling. “The first game matchup against Ithaca and the second game we just weren’t fully prepared. We didn’t execute well and then in the third game we brought it together and got a good win. So, I think this team is looking in the right direction”.
After debriefing the first few games of the season, I was curious how the losses affected the team morale. Casey felt, “It was a tough loss, but it was like more like shaking the rest off. We knew it was going to be tough and in week two I feel like we all thought we were going to win. I feel like we took UNE lightly and that’s what we paid for. And then after that week two game it was more of a wake-up call and I feel like we pulled together. We had a great week of practice. Because it was conference week, we started on sort of focus. Albert added that “Against Ithaca, we knew going in that they’re going to be a good team. And then you know, at halftime, we thought we had them, and then we let up a little bit in the second half and it just came back and ended up losing. We kind of just got to learn from that and in week three, we tried our best not to let up. It’s still got kind of close, but we were able to finish it off.”
With the first victory of the season coming in week 3 against Plymouth State University, I wanted to touch on the importance of that victory. Casey believed that win was “very important because it was our first conference game and it set the tone for the rest of the season. [Plymouth State] is a great team defensively and they’re very physical, so we match up well against them and that set the tone for the rest of season with that big win.” Torres agreed and answered that “We just can’t take any team lightly anymore. If we take them lightly, we’re going to just think that we got them beat. But if they play harder than us, we’re just going to lose everything. We just got to play hard, play our best every single game, every single quarter.”
I talked to Brendan Albert about his impressive season. He has been the MASCAC Defensive Player of the Week and was a recipient of the DII and III Gold Helmet Awards. He currently leads the conference in forced fumbles and is tied for the lead in recovered fumbles. I was curious about what to account for his success after losing an important year of his career in 2020. He claims that “I just honestly think its cause of the guys I have around me. You know they’re balling out too, trying the hardest, and when they’re doing their job, it just makes it easier for me to do my job and make plays.”
The Bears would win that Friday night against Western Connecticut State to make it 2-2 in the 2021 season. Bears running back Adam Couch won the MASCAC Offensive Player of the Week for his performance against WestConn. BSU will face Fitchburg State on Fitchburgs’ home turf on October 2nd at 3:00 pm.
