BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) \u2014 The Renegades football team has claimed several national championships and state championships across multiple sports throughout its more than 100-year history.<\/p>\n
Players say that legacy is not lost on them as they prepare to take the field Saturday.<\/p>\n
“We love the fans we love the support,” Dennis Biakuse said.<\/p>\n
“Knowing people in the community love it makes us feel great, and we wanna do better because they’re coming out,” punter Jack Smith said.<\/p>\n
Running back Austin Hernandez said representing his home state this season carries extra meaning \u2014 especially after a difficult road back from injury.<\/p>\n
“I tore my knee – my meniscus – something told me to come home and I couldn’t have made a better choice,” Hernandez said.<\/p>\n
Hernandez said the support of longtime fans drives his motivation on the field.<\/p>\n
“I wanna do really good for those people who’s been here and supported us throughout the years,” Hernandez said.<\/p>\n
Head coach Tyler Thompson said that despite the program’s milestone anniversary, his expectations for the team remain unchanged.<\/p>\n
“We have a lot of pride because this year is special but at the end of the day these kids just gotta show up and play no matter who we’re playing,” Thompson said.<\/p>\n
Stay in Touch with Us Anytime, Anywhere:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) \u2014 The Renegades football team has claimed several national championships and state championships across multiple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[176991,151,155,153,152,176995,1321,176992,176996,176993,176994,41925],"class_list":["post-446825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-austin-hernandez","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-downtown","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news","tag-championship-history","tag-college-football","tag-dennis-biakuse","tag-home-state-pride","tag-jack-smith","tag-renegades","tag-tyler-thompson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}