With the start of preseason football practice for the 2023 season getting underway Monday, the local coaches have different objectives and goals they want to achieve during the first week.
“The first thing is we have to get acclimated to the heat,” Central coach Jeremy Thompson said. “We have to start making sure we’re getting in shape. We’re going to work on our base offense and defense. We want to make sure we’re fundamentally sound. Those are the keys at the beginning of the year. We want to get ready for our scrimmages. We want to make sure we’re ready when we go into scrimmage No. 1 (vs. Keys (Park Hill) at 6 p.m. Aug. 18) and scrimmage No. 2 (6 p.m. Aug. 25 vs. Morris). Then, it’s game time. There’s a lot to get in during these next two weeks.”
“We want to come out with a good intensity, set the tempo and set the stage for the season right off the bat,” Vian coach Gary Willis said. “We still have a lot of young players still moving around a little bit. We have positions we’re unsure of, so we’re looking for competition for those spots. We’ve got some guys who can play different spots, so we’ll see if someone steps up — or if it’s a spot where we’ll rotate players.”
“Our main goal is to get the right personnel where we want them to where we’re going to have the best success possible,” Gore coach Brandon Ellis said. “We had a really good spring, and we think we have it figured out. This week coming up, we’re really going to start getting our 1s and 2s depth chart-wise figured out and what’s going to fit us best to have success.”
Ellis said that last year’s Class A state title game run is a big factor to help the Pirates try to keep the success going — hopefully to a gold ball come December.
“It was a great group of kids,” Ellis said. “They were successful. They did a great job. It’s kind of exciting. We’re returning basically one returning slated starter from last year’s team. Now, it’s time for these guys. They’re eager. It’s fallen upon them now that they need to step up. The tradition is here. Gore has always had a strong tradition. We want to continue that.”
“We still have a couple of spots we need to nail down with graduation, so we might as well get after it,” Webbers Falls coach Trent Holt said. “We’ll be thin, depth wise — it’s small-school football. It’s what we face all the time. We need to get those new kids familiar with what we’re doing. They’re familiar with what we’re doing, but we still don’t know who we’re going to start in a couple of spots. We want to get them some experience. We’re going to have to have a couple of freshmen step up. They’re just going to need to get reps. We think we have a shot at being pretty good.”
