Bakersfield College cruised to three victories to open the season, obviously against inferior talent. But the Renegades ran into a buzz saw against their first potent opponent on Saturday.

The 40-24 loss at El Camino demonstrated the value of having a top-line quarterback. It was 3-3 after the first quarter but after that it got away from the Gades. El Camino built a 30-10 lead at one point.

The BC defense dominated its first three opponents, but El Camino QB Matt Simms (son of ex-NFL great Phil Simms) picked apart the BC secondary with crisp, short passes, with an occasional long toss thrown in. He had 403 passing yards by the end of the third quarter and 431 in the game.

Simms passed quickly -- often using a two-step drop and throwing. That left little time for the BC rush to put much pressure on him. BC sacked him only twice, and he was hit after throwing only a handful of times.

There were two long pass plays -- a 50-yarder to El Camino's top receiver Kenbrell Thompkins who ran a fly pattern, got behind the BC defenders and received a perfectly thrown pass from Simms. The other long one was 51 yards to Tony Sekona, but that was a short pass that turned into a long gain when BC defender Deonata Nard missed a tackle that would have ended the play after about 12 yards.

El Camino, on the other hand, got constant pressure on BC QB Logan Kilgore. Kilgore had some chances but overthrew a few balls. The best pass play of the night was a great throw and subsequent catch by Vince Van Horne at the 1-yard line as he somehow kept his feet in bounds along the sideline for a fingertip catch.

It's hard to imagine BC facing a QB like Simms or a group of receivers like El Camino has. El Camino had 10 different players with receptions, and the majority of them ran sharp routes, had good hands and found seams in the BC secondary.

Aside from the first drive of the night, BC never got its ground game going. Unofficially 31 net rushing yards illustrates how tough it was to run against an El Camino team that consistently had eight players close to the line of scrimmage.

Next up for BC is Pasadena in the Northern National Conference opener for both teams, which both have 3-1 records. Pasadena routed Riverside 38-7 on Saturday.

A week from next Saturday BC is in Santa Maria to face Allen Hancock, which improved to 4-0 Saturday by rolling past Citrus 48-23.

So these next two games loom large. The challenge is seeing how the Renegades bounce back after Saturday.