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By BEN MCCARTY
News staff writer
August 23, 2008
Hood River Valley football coach Tracy Jackson moves up and down
the sideline shouting “NASCAR! NASCAR! NASCAR!”
It is a not-too-subtle code for the first team offense on the
field: Hurry up!
It’s year two of the spread offense experiment for the Eagles,
who went through a difficult learning curve with the system last
year, and getting confidence in the no-huddle offense is
expected to be one of the keys for a turnaround this year.
The Eagles managed only one conference win, trouncing lowly
Sandy in the final game of the season. They suffered
heartbreaking final drive defeats in the games they were
competitive in, and were blown out and over-matched in several
others.
With personnel better suited for the spread, a season’s worth of
learning by taking lumps, and a year of learning the system
under their belts, Jackson has hopes for improvements this year.
“We have seen marked improvement,” he said. “We have some good
leadership in this group.”
Every summer the team typically travels to a football camp. This
year the Eagles decided to forgo that experience to bring in
Donnie Walker, an expert in the spread offense, to teach them
how to run the system better.
“Those were two intense days,” Jackson said.
The two-day camp gave the team what amounted to a spread offense
boot camp, and with new players stepping into key roles on
offense this year, they will likely need every ounce of
knowledge they acquired.
Sam Kopecky will be taking over the quarterback reigns from
graduated two-starter Travis Carratt and Sean Baker and Colton
Swearingen will be filling the shoes left by graduated starter
Eric Lujano and Ryan Nelson at running back. Two key play makers
from last year, Joe Gehrig and Jacob Bohince, will again be
starting at No. 1 and No. 2 receiver spots.
Both had several highlight reel-worthy plays last year, and will
likely see plenty of passes from Kopecky.
However, behind Gehrig and Bohince the Eagles are extremely thin
on depth at wide receiver, and the lack of depth at receiver on
offense translates to a lack of depth in defensive backs on the
defensive side of the ball.
The Eagles linebacker core will be counted to pick up some of
the slack on defense.
Five players — Lucas Mondragon, Elliott Sherrell, Dylan Edwards,
Baker and Zach DeHart — are competing for four starting spots.
“We have five stud linebackers and four of them are playing
mainly defense so we will have a chance to have some fresh
tigers out there,” Jackson said.
Getting defensive stops will be key for the Eagles while the
offense continues to try and build confidence. Last season the
Eagles found themselves knocked out of games early. One instance
that stands out in Jackson’s mind was a match-up at Centennial,
where Centennial rolled up a 35-point lead before the first
quarter was over.
“I still have bad dreams about that game,” he said.
That game started a death spiral for the team’s season. The
Eagles lost by 27-21 to Reynolds the next week and then scored
no more than seven points in each of their next three games.
That is not the sort of the season the members want to be
settling for this year.
“I want a winning season,” Bohince said. “A 2-7 record is not
acceptable.”
To improve on that mark, an offense that lost its way in the
second half of last season is hoping to all be on the same page
to start this one.
While Baker and Swearingen may not have the size to steamroll
opposing linebackers, Jackson likes the fact that both are
shifty and fast. The same goes for many of the wide receivers.
What they lack in size and bulk they are expected to make up for
elusiveness and speed. One element where the Eagles do have more
size than last year is the offensive line.
“We decided to get stronger in the off season,” lineman Ethan
Lucas said. “(Strength coach) Jeremy Dyal helped us out a lot in
the weight room.”
That strength is expected to give Kopecky more time in the
pocket to throw, and give the HRV running game, which all but
disappeared in the second half of last season, a chance to
balance out the offense.
After one year of taking their lumps while they learned a new
system, and a summer spent ironing out the wrinkles, Jackson is
optimistic that the Eagles will show improvement this year, but
how much improvement they show, he says, is up to them.
“We want to focus on excelling,” he said. “We want our guys to
ask themselves ‘How much fight do we have?’”
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