AURORA – The Elizabeth football team, coached by Buzz Zoesch, is 7-0 and ranked No. 2 in 1A.
Today, he is being recognized as the Broncos High School Tackle Coach of the Week. The Denver Broncos and CHSAA will continue to honor one flag football coach and one tackle football coach each week throughout the season.
Throughout the year, all Coach of the Week honorees will be recognized on the field during a pregame ceremony at Broncos home games.
Q&A with Buzz Zoesch:
What was your football background before becoming the head coach at Elizabeth and how did you end up at Elizabeth?
I'm originally from Elizabeth. I graduated all the way back in 2000, and then I went off and played some college football. When I came back, three years later, the head coach at the time invited me back to help out with the freshman team. Then, I just worked my way up to being the head coach here and fell in love with coaching, so I stuck with it.
How would you describe your coaching style or philosophy? Has it changed over your coaching career?
That one's easy. As far as the team goes, we want to play good defense, and we want to be able to run the ball. I think that's very important in high school football. It's a physicality mentality that we take here. I don't think that's ever really changed as far as my coaching career goes. It's always been my thinking of how you win football games.
How do you maintain your program's level of consistency as a coach?
I think it's hard to do these days. I think one thing we have is consistency within our coaching staff year in year out. It helps the kids know how they're going to get coached. We have good coaches here that have been here a long time. The kids buy into your system from when they're freshmen throughout their senior year and they grow each and every year. The wins and losses come from the players, not necessarily the coaches.
You've talked about strong leadership from the senior class, what kind of leadership and culture do they bring to this team?
They're just loose. They bring everyone together. They're not demanding what they ask for, but they lead. They give great effort and the rest of the team follows them. I think the locker room's loose: they enjoy being around together, and I think that's important. It's unique to this group. Nothing really fazes them, so they just go out there and play.
Last year Elizabeth finished the season as the 2A runner-up. Does your team use this as a motivator to win the upcoming state championship, or do you prefer to start every season without thinking about the previous one?
Now we've kind of moved past that and they're kind of creating their own identity. It's a winning identity. They're their own team, led by a good group of seniors, and they're having fun. They're playing good defense, and they'll score some points on offense.
What does this football team mean to Elizabeth?
I think it means a lot. Every year, being from a small town, people like the small-town football atmosphere. They come out and support us every Friday night, and we have a packed house. We get a ton of support from our community, and it means a lot to the boys and our program.
Your final regular season is against The Classical Academy. Without giving too much away, how do you prepare your team for a tough matchup like that before heading into playoffs?
It's about getting our kids' confidence. TCA is a big rival of ours: we know them, they know us. There are really no secrets, there's no preparation, it's just about who's going to execute and who's going to play with the most heart and physicality. We're going to see who comes out on top. I think for us, we just got to make sure we're confident and we're healthy going into that last game.
