The Kiowa County Mavericks broke football camp Saturday after a week’s worth of two-a-days following a six-week routine of three-day-a-week lifting alternating with two days of drills. From now until the start of pre-season practice August 16 the coaching staff can still work with the boys in the weight room, as long as nothing “football specific” is undertaken.
While there’s still much work to be done in the three weeks leading up to the September 3 season opener, Coach Clint Young has seen enough the past seven weeks to have clear-cut impressions. The Signal asked the coach several questions toward that end. Following is the exchange.
Signal: What overall is your impression of how things went these past seven weeks? What have you learned about this team, the meshing of players and coaches?
Young: I feel like we’ve had a good summer. The kids were open to trying out different spots and really worked at making each other better. When we broke camp I told them they’re going to hear a lot about how good they should be this fall. I told them to stay humble and work hard and things will work out well for us this season. I know Robin (Rose, asst coach) told me the other day that he couldn’t tell it was the first season for these kids to all be together. I think that says a lot.
Signal: How about your new coaching staff, with Robin joining you and Steve?
Young: We get along really well. We like and respect one another. And the guy they hired to coach the junior high—Kirk Miller—he’s been out here on the field some with us because he wants to implement a lot of what we’re doing with the younger kids, and that says a lot about him. I think he’ll do a good job for us at that level and give us some continuity as kids go from his program to ours.
Signal: Okay, time for you to do a little ranking, from ? (questions remain) to one star (solid) to two stars (as good as or better than anyone in our district) to three stars (good enough to go deep in the playoffs).
Offensive line: one star
Defensive line: one star
Linebackers: ?
Defensive backfield: one star
Receivers: one star
Running backs: ?
Quarterbacks: two stars
Coaching staff: one star
Signal: What will be more of a strength for this team, offense or defense?
Young: In the past it’s been our offense, and make no mistake, we’ll be pretty athletic on offense. But I’m hoping the defense is our strong suit so we won’t have to score 40 points to win. We’ve got enough depth so we can do some substitution and rotation on defense.
Signal: What will folks see when they get a look at you guys lining up this season, in terms of what will be different from the past couple of years?
Young: Nobody, other than you and few others who’ve drifted by, has seen our offensive sets because we came up with them this summer. I’ve seen some college teams use this type of motion but we’ve tweaked it to make it our own. It will give our quarterbacks some more time and help out our offensive linemen. We’ll be in shotgun most of the time. That can be a little more dangerous, but it’s also what makes us dangerous.
Signal: What will be familiar?
Young: Well, we haven’t thrown out the double tight look and we’ll be pretty tough in it. That’s what we ran 90 percent of the time last year, but this season we’ll be in the spread about 75 percent of the time.
Signal: Unless the weather’s nasty?
Young: Right. And we’ll be able to move the ball if we’re forced to go to the double tight.
Signal: What about your base defense?
Young: We’ve been jumping between three of them—a 4-1, 3-3, and 3-2 monster—so we can adjust in all three without having to change personnel.
Signal: Who’s your monster?
Young: Right now I’d say Ross Binford. He’s got a nose for the ball.
Signal: Who’s impressed you over the summer?
Young: There’s too many to single out just a few, and that’s a nice situation to have. I will mention Lymon Morehead as the kid who’s improved the most from one year to the next. He made a huge leap from his freshman to sophomore year last season and he’s made another one this year as a junior. His footwork and foot speed are so improved. He just works his tail off. He’s going to be a force on the line.
Signal: I know you averaged around 20 kids over the summer. Are there others you’re hoping show up August 16?
Young: There are several that could and should be out for football, kids that could help us. But I’m pretty happy with the ones we’ve had this summer. You wait until August 16 and you’re still part of the team but you’ve made it hard on yourself physically and mentally to try and catch up. It can be done, but it’s tough to do.
