Southwest Texas Football Kicks off the Season 2007

Area schools for the most part aren’t planning anything fancy. Pounding yardage on the ground is the primary offensive strategy for most of them. DEL RIO RAMS Del Rio’s Rams have a new look under new head coach Steve Hoffman. This year’s team plans to grind out yardage, hang tough and finish stronger than last year’s 3-7 squad. “We’ll probably run the ball more in one game than they did all last year,” Hoffman said following an intersquad scrimmage a couple of weeks ago. “We’re going to run the football, control the clock, try to play good defense and have a chance at the end.” Hoffman was the defensive coordinator for the highly regarded Schertz Clemens Buffaloes last year. Clemens dominated its AAAA district and made a nice run into the playoffs, bowing in the semifinals to LaMarque. Hoffman brought in other talent from his old district, plucking Mark Sauceda from San Marcos to be offensive coordinator. Del Rio, chucked in with San Antonio powerhouses in district, isn’t expected to repeat its lackluster showing last year, but neither are other prognosticators anticipating a run into the playoffs. “We’re in a tough district, but we think we’re running an offense and defense that is going to keep us in football games and keep the clock going, shortening the game. That gives you a chance to win.”  “The kind of offense this is; it’s two yards, it’s three yards, it’s four yards. We just keep plugging away. We get first downs and break a big play every now and then. It’s not the most exciting offense in the world but it gets the job done. Hoffman said the San Marcos type of grind-it-out short yardage pounding seems to suit the Rams. “Our kids look like San Marcos kids,” he said. “They’re the exact same. If San Marcos ran a different offense they wouldn’t be successful. If they ran a spread offense they wouldn’t have the athletes to do it.” Back this year for the Rams is middle linebacker Austin Benson, who will also see some offensive action as a halfback. “He’s a leader on defense,” Hoffman said. “He’s a big physical linebacker. We’re kind of built around him on defense.” Fullback Michael Arreola was an offensive standout at the intersquad scrimmage, breaking several long runs early on. “He worked so hard over the summer,” Hoffman said. “He was in here every day, lifting weights and running, getting stronger.” Arreola, he said, is the “perfect back for this offense. He’s shifty, he’s fast enough and he reads blocks well. Along with Arreola in the backfield are Benson and Homero Cadena at halfbacks. Hoffman is happy with his running back tandem. “They complement each other well,” he said. “We have the big back to block and the speedy, shifty back. It works out pretty well.” “We feel this offense suits these kids because they’re tough and they’re going to do what they’re asked to do,” Hoffman said. Defensively Hoffman plans to install a defense like he did at Schertz Clemens. “It’s aggressive, but we’re sound in what we do. We don’t run up the field, we don’t put our kids in positions where they’re not going to be successful. “When we line up, we line up sound and we’re not beating our kids. There may be teams that are better than us and execute better than us, we can live with that. But we can’t live with putting our kids in a position where they don’t have a chance to succeed.” Hoffman is light on senior leadership this year, with only about 20 returning seniors on the squad. Hoffman said that number is “ridiculous at a school with 2,600 students.” There are half again as many sophomores on this year’s team, 33 in all. “We hope to keep those kids together, I think we’ll pick some more up,” he said. BRACKETT TIGERS Brackettville’s District 29-A Tigers are a proud program. Year before last and the year before that the Tigers were in the state quarterfinals. Last year they went 6-5 and lost to Shiner in the second round. Head coach Greg Voyles is looking for a better result this year. “Last year was not a disappointment, but not up to our standards,” Voyles said. “Going 6-5 and going to the playoffs isn’t a bad year by any means, but we want them higher. That’s what we expect the kids to do because they’ve proven they can do that.” The Tigers reload with six offensive starters and five defensive starters this year. A halfback last year, Travis Bonner, 6-1, 180 pounds with a fleet 4.6 seconds over 40 yards, takes the reins of the offense this year as quarterback. “He was a key player for us last year,” Voyles said. “We expect a lot of things from him, not only with his arm, but his legs, too. He’ll be our starting strong safety as well.” Fermin Villanueva is back at fullback on offense and linebacker on the other side of the ball. “He’s a good-sized kid, 5-10, 200 pounds and he can run. We’re expecting a lot from him this year,” Voyles said. Also in the backfield is Jacob Schroder, 5-10, 170 pounds with a 4.7 40-yard time, is a halfback and defensive back. He triples as the Tigers’ placekicker, adding dimension to the ground attack the Tigers prefer. “He’s a very, very talented kicker,” Voyles said. “It’s a really good weapon to have.” Providing protection on offense and pressure on defense is returning senior lineman Israel DeHoyos. “He’s worked really hard this summer and got a lot stronger,” Voyles said. There doesn’t appear to be a clear-cut favorite in the district this year. But d’Hanis seems to be the preseason consensus as champion. Voyles said the Cowboys will be the team to beat this year. “They return a lot of skilled kids, they’ll be good,” Voyles said. The Cowboys are led by Paden Lynch, who threw for 1,726 yards and 15 touchdowns last year, and Trey Mumme, who gained nearly 1,000 rushing yards last year. Both Mumme and Lynch are solid defensive players from their linebacker slots as well. Voyles also nods to the Sabinal Yellowjackets as a threat to take the district as well. He said senior quarterback Steve Rodriguez is a playmaking threat. Sabinal has experience from last year’s playoffs that should see them in good stead this year. “They beat us at home last year,” Voyles said. “They know they can beat us, so they’re going to be very, very tough.” Perennial powerhouse the Rocksprings Angoras were hit hard by graduation after their 10-2 season. Voyles said, though, that the Rocksprings program is “tough, year in and year out.” “They’ll rebuild and be fine,” he said. “It’ll be a tough ball game.” The Tigers will come at them with a slot-T offense. “We run the ball 90 percent of the time,” Voyles said. “We don’t throw the ball very often, five or six times a game maybe.” “We line up, get three or four yards, then come back and do it again,” Voyles said. “We get a couple of yards a pop, it’s a ball-control type offense.” Brackettville, he said. “hangs its hat on defense,” playing a basic 3-4 alignment. “We expect a lot of the defense,” Voyles said. “We don’t do anything fancy, we just line up in our base package.” SONORA BRONCOS Sonora has the richest legacy of success in the region. Five state championships grace the trophy case at Sonora High School, and success is expected at Sonora every year. Last year the Broncos were 8-3, and had been perfect up until the last three games of the season when they took consecutive whacks from Comfort, Blanco and Ozona in the bi-district round. Look for some extraneous interest in the Sonora-Junction dustup this season, that’s when Sonora coach Sean Leamon goes up against the team he coached last year. In the off season Leamon left his post as athletic director and head football coach to take the same posts in Sonora. Sonora’s offense hugs the ground. They run out of the Wishbone, but Leamon says he’s not averse to putting the ball in the air occasionally, either. “I’ve got some big tight ends and I’ve got a few smaller ones with good hands,” he said. “I need to keep (other teams) honest. One of my tight ends is going to go 6’5.” It’s nice to have a little height out there, especially if someone is going to go man coverage against you. I’ll take a 5’10” corner on my 6’5” tight end.” The Broncos like to run from the wishbone, spicing it up with some traps and some sprint-out passes. Leamon’s charges have to get used to the new offense, though. “They ran the spread last year, it’s a little different for them. It’s taking a while,” he said. Graduation stripped the Broncos of 23 players last year. But they have a little something left over, four starters each on offense and defense. All-district tight end/defensive end Michael Jenkins is back, as is fellow all-district linebacker Riley Sanchez. Sanchez is going both ways this year, too, taking over as quarterback/running back. Clearing holes will be the core of last year’s offensive line, in addition to Jenkins, all-district guards Morgan Martinez and Zadrian McGee and center Edward Garcia are down in the trenches again. Sonora’s defense is the same 50 they ran last year. “They kind of struggled at times last year,” Leamon admits. “They had a lot of offensive specialists. Defense was left with what was left over a lot of times. I’m not that way. I want my best 11 on the football field at all times. It doesn’t matter what they play. I have a lot of kids going both ways.” The downside is that Sonora is in a tough district. Last year’s nemesis, the Comfort Bobcats, are ranked as high as No. 5 in some preseason polls. The Blanco Panthers are a top 20 team as well. “Blanco will probably be the team to beat this year,” Leamon said. “But after that it’s a rat race. Brady has a lot of good, young kids. Last year they were 1-9 or 0-10 varsity-wise-- but their sub-varsities only lost a game or two. Comfort looks like they’ll be good again, too. “I think it’s up in the air.” EAGLE PASS EAGLES The forced division of Eagle Pass’s football program last year didn’t do anyone any favors. Eagle Pass High (3-7) came out only slightly ahead of crosstown rival C.C.Winn (1-9). That was last year, and effectively a rebuilding year for both schools. Look for more from Eagle Pass this year. “Last year in the spring we were still together over there. All those kids from C.C. Winn and us,” said Eagle Pass High head coach Tom Gonzales. “All that spring we couldn’t do anything specific. We couldn’t put in our offense, They couldn’t put in their offense. We had to do generic drills, whereas now all spring we worked on our offense and defense, and when we started two-a-days, we started where we were about midseason last year.” The Eagles, Gonzales said, went into the season with five plays and three formations, about as basic as you can get in 5A ball. Gonzales departed from previous practice and installed a spread offense, too, which further complicated things. “We’d always been a running team. We’d always had a fullback and a tailback and a quarterback under center. Now we go all shotgun, it’s a big difference.” The Eagles have hopes for more from this season. Quarterback Joel Cano returns off a 1,300-yard passing year last year and all-district running back Edgar Beattie is expected to put up another 1,000-yard plus season as he has the two previous years. “Our receivers are coming around,” Gonzales said. “We have four or five good receivers, they’re still not where they should be, but they’re getting it.” The division of the football player pool in Eagle Pass left both teams fielding young players. With a year under their belts, Gonzales sees experience as a plus for this year’s squad. Cano and Beattie are solid on defense and middle linebacker Trey Marquez has been starting for the Eagles for three years. The Eagles sport more depth this year. Gonzales said the second team is as good as his first string this year. Injuries shouldn’t be the crippler they were at times last year. Gonzales said this year’s Eagles will be swifter, too. “We have a lot of speed,” he said. “For the first time ever we had 43 football players out for track last year. In the past we had maybe 16 or 17. A lot of kids ran track and they got faster and that helped out.” Defensively the Eagles run a 4-2-5 alignment, a response to the pass-happy Laredo schools, who mostly run spread offenses. Gonzales sees the contenders in district this year as very much the same as last year. He says Laredo United is the odds-on favorite. United lost most of its offense to graduation, but solid, undefeated replacements are coming up from its junior varsity and freshman teams from last year. He said Laredo Nixon and Laredo Cigarroa appear to be tough this year as well. Gonzales is especially happy about his team’s attitude. “This summer our senior class was practicing the stuff that we had taught them in the spring,” he said. “They were out there two or three times a week. By the time we started two-a-days the defense already knew their adjustments, the offense knew their plays. “It was our quarterback that mainly got it together. He called the practices and ran the offense. Our linebacker ran the defense.” “They were ready to go, on their own,” he said. “We’re expecting good things.” EAGLE PASS C.C.WINN MAVERICKS Eagle Pass Winn didn’t win too much last year. A 1-9 record isn’t something Coach David Charles expects to repeat this year. “Last year was our first year, and both schools suffered greatly,” he said. “We had some big time injuries. We just didn’t have that depth that we were used to. I think, considering the circumstances, that our kids adjusted fairly well. We’re going to reap a little bit of the rewards due to the fact that all the kids that we have that were going through the fire last year are a year older, a year wiser and a year stronger.” Still, the Mavericks are a little on the young side. “We’re still having to deplete our sophomore class,” Charles said. “We usually want to keep those guys in JV, let them get older. We’re still having to pull a number of them. It’ll take two or three years before we actually set up the numbers the way we want them, where we have at least two or three guys to back up. “This year we have a sophomore backup quarterback. We’ll have a sophomore left guard starting, probably. We might have a sophomore fullback starting.” C.C. Winn shut out Corpus Christi Miller in the opening scrimmage of the year, in San Antonio last week. “The defense looked a whole lot better than last year,” Charles said. “Our team speed is just better. Our cohesiveness as a unit is better. We’re keeping our angles, just doing the things that you would expect a more experienced team to do. (Miller) had pretty good running backs, a real good quarterback and I think we did a fairly good job considering this was our first scrimmage. Defensively Joel Canizales and Ricky Rodriguez are back at the ends, along with tackle Roger Uresti and linebacker Jesse Rodriguez. Offensively, Charles wasn’t as happy, but he’s far from glum “We still have some things we have to fix up,” he said. “But I think the pieces are there to get it going. We have a real experienced line coming back with four starters returning on the offensive line. We have two sophomore running backs. One sophomore started the last game of the year for us last year. He got over 300 yards in his only start.” Charles said he hopes his experienced offensive line can help carry the youthful backfield this year. Rico Carrizales (6-2, 270 pounds) at right guard, Brando Lopez (5-11, 240 pounds) at right tackle, Jose Vasquez (6-1, 230 pounds) at left tackle are the guys expected to clear holes for the backs. The Mavericks are bucking the predominant offensive philosophy in the district. They run multiple I formations, not the spread. “We pretty much try to run the ball,” Charles said. “We run everything that you can think off in the I formation. We spread the ball out very little. We rarely go into three-receiver or four-receiver sets and if we do we’re still kind of looking to run the ball out of it.” “Most of the district throws about 75 percent of the time and run the other 25 percent. We’re kind of on the other side. We’ll try to run the ball about 75 percent. “I pretty much like emphasizing ball control,” Charles said. “Our offense isn’t going to hurt us, and the defense is going to keep us in games. We don’t look to score a whole lot of points. It’s not like these spread offense trying to put points on the board and be winning games 60-50. We’re hoping eventually to get our defense to be the heart of our team and then allow the offense to come along and just kind of pop the ball. You don’t see too many teams that rely on that old-fashioned three yards and a cloud of dust.” Defensively the Mavericks run 4-3 to help counteract the district passing attacks. Often they’ll run a nickel package, or even six backs defensively. Charles thinks Laredo United is the front runner for the district. “After that it’s a toss-up,” he said. Nixon is a traditional team that fits in there, you’ve got Alexander. Eagle Pass High was in a lot of games last year. I think they lost two games in overtime and two more in the last minute of the games. They went 3-7 and it could have easily been 7-3.” “I wouldn’t think there’s a true second, third and fourth place team. Even teams at the bottom of the district, Like LBJ, United South and us. On a given night, if things go right, we could start turning heads.”