BLOOMFIELD – Building a dynasty wasn’t easy. Winning two state championships in a row and three in the last four years was by no means a small task.
Maintaining that type of success going forward brings about all sorts of new challenges, particularly when the people who helped build that dynasty keep changing.
Bloomfield High football head coach Mike Kovacs has learned that over the past several years.
One of the most dominant prep football programs in the state are ready to open defense of their Class 4A title on Friday, Aug. 21 when they visit Santa Fe High School in a neutral site contest against Clovis.
The Bobcats will do so with a new quarterback and some new faces at other positions, and will also do so in a newly arranged District 1-4A lineup that added several new opponents to a very imposing schedule.
In addition to Clovis, Bloomfield will also tackle Class 6A Farmington in their second game of the campaign before taking on a district slate which includes four teams from last season’s Class 4A postseason.
“The mantra that we try to go with is we’re going to reload and do the same thing. Now, the results are going to be different, simply because of the age of individuals,” Kovacs said. “Our quarterbacks are going to be sophomores. Our skill players are going to be seniors. Our line’s going to be senior-heavy this year. The difference is can this group come together, first of all, and buy in and believe that they are contenders.”
Sophomores Kaison Meador and Wyatt Babcock are both making their case for the role of starting quarterback for the Bobcats. As freshmen last year, they saw limited opportunities behind recent graduate Manuel Chavarria, one of the top signal callers in the state with more than 3500 passing yards and 53 scoring strikes to his credit last season.
The challenge isn’t going to be how to replace Chavarria, but to get the duo to establish their own role with the team.
“We’ve had three quarterbacks, all one-year quarterbacks since I took over in 2021,” Kovacs said. “And they all got their time to shine. It’s hard to cultivate a culture where it’s based on season to season because they want to live in the past. And right now, one of the big things that we’re struggling with is living in the past.”
Meador and Babcock have been busy this offseason establishing themselves as the lead signal caller for the upcoming season.
“They’re both doing a lot,” Kovacs said. “Trying to catch them up with the game. I thought we’d be a little further behind, but I’m super excited. Our quarterbacks coaches have been fantastic and I think after next week’s scrimmage, all that work is going to take off for us.”
The new district alignment means eight district games this season, with only a pair of non-district games this season. It also means the temporary pause of a crosstown rivalry with neighbor Aztec, which saw its football program moved down to Class 3A for the time being.
“That’s been one of those rivalries that are lifelong, and I’m sad about that,” Kovacs said. “I never want to give up a rivalry like that where we have history since the 1950s. But we had to move away from that because of the district alignments, and they filled my district up. Hopefully in a couple years we can maybe play the first game of the year with each other.”
Leading the Bloomfield offensive line this season will be seniors Johnny Yates and Marius Benally, who anchored one of the most prolific scoring machines in New Mexico High School football history.
The team scored 753 points last season, topping the 2004 Hatch Valley squad for most points in a single season.
“I think those guys are going to lead our team. They they know what it takes,” Kovacs said. “They’ve played long enough, and they know what it means to build for a championship season.”
Defensively, the Bobcats welcome back Tayetum Callado, who had his season cut short after suffering an injury in the Class 4A semifinals against Taos.
Callado will be part of a strong defensive backfield which will include Cable Carruth, Bryce Vance, Markeith Childress and recent Aztec High transfer Jules Dixon.
“Speed on the back end and we’ve got depth so we’re super excited to see what they’re going to do,” Kovacs said.
As for the task of repeating as state champions, Kovacs knows that road to a championship will go through a very challenging district campaign.
“Our district looks exciting. There is absolutely going to be parity across the board,” Kovacs said. “Our non-district schedule is two games while the south district gets four games, and it’s just crazy right now so it it’s going to be interesting.”