After a lost season, coaches grappling with inexperience
While Brian Mazzone, the head coach of the Stafford/somers/ East Windsor football co-op, recognizes that the heat wave that Connecticut has endured in the past two weeks could be hampering his team’s abilities in the preseason, he believes more than just 90-degree days and humidity are slowing down the Bulldogs.
“We’re dragging,” Mazzone said. “Freshmen, sophomores, especially freshmen and sophomore linemen. The struggle is so incredibly real. They want out of everything. I’ve had quite a few quit. That’s really hard, trying to get the sophomores up to speed, because it’s almost like they lost two years of football.
“So far, practice has been a struggle.”
Mazzone and many other state football coaches have chalked up early challenges to inexperience. A senior in 2021 was a sophomore in 2019 — the last year in which Connecticut played a traditional high school football season — and likely didn’t see much time on
varsity. Juniors are in the same boat. Sophomores and freshmen are in identical situations, with zero true high school experience.
Of the 10 coaches The Courant polled, one has five returning players with varsity experience, two have four, four have two, and three have one. Some had just a
handful of sophomores play on special teams in 2019.
Now, with two weeks until games kick off on Sept. 9, coaches around the state are scrambling to install offenses and defenses, acclimate athletes to a varsity football experience and, in some cases, teach the basics of the sport to a group of largely green players.
“There in lies the issue, right?” Hartford Public coach Harry Bellucci said. “How do you fast forward experience?”
Dave Masters has the largest roster he’s ever had in his six years at Simsbury but just one returning varsity starter in senior running back John Mairano. Mazzone is one of the lucky few returning an All-state player in senior wide receiver/db Logan Briggs.
As contests begin and inexperience begins to show, those few-and-far between veterans will be leaned upon.
“We kind of had a series [in our scrimmage against E.O. Smith] where we didn’t look really good,” Mazzone said. “And we found [the veterans]. And we came down the field and scored. They’re kind of head and shoulders above the rest of the team right now. And that kind of stinks in some ways, because everything is slower. But those guys, they’re good athletes, good players and experienced.”
Mazzone said his skill position players are further along than his lineman, and that other coaches have said the same. Even so, it’s clear to him that the fall of 2020 — in which teams were resigned to individual practices and low-contact contests — impeded development.
“The thing that people don’t realize, is that last year was fake,” Mazzone said. “It was fake. You were nice all the time because you wanted the kids there every day. You were positive all the time because you had a crappy experience with the kids, and you wanted to make it a good experience. But last year was fake, they didn’t get the same kind of coaching, same kind of intensity, and we never hit.”
A game of speed
Some aspects of the game can be taught, albeit in an abbreviated format. Technique and scheme will be drilled into players’ heads as preseason progresses to expedite the learning curve. What can’t be indoctrinated over the course of the month, though, is the experience and pace of a varsity football game. That’s where coaches are seeing the biggest gap between the sparse returners and newcomers.
“It’s the speed and tempo,” Masters said. “None of them had the benefit of being juniors and watching seniors operate and see what it takes to do it. The challenge now is, in the limited about of time you have, to set the same kind of tempo. You can’t replace the game experience, so it’s really hard to simulate and practice so they get that.”
Bellucci, whose team scrimmaged South Windsor on Wednesday, said he spoke with a sophomore guard shortly after the varsity sides finished up.
“He’s a strong kid, but he’s never played football. I said to him, ‘What do you think?’ ” Bellucci said. “He goes, ‘It’s a lot faster than I thought, guys are flying everywhere.’ I told him, ‘The more you play, it slows down for you.’ But I think that’s a problem all these kids will have. The game is super fast when you’ve never played football before, or your last experience was a freshman game.”
Scrimmages, of which each team is allowed to hold once per week in the preseason, have become more valuable in 2021 than in years past. For most programs, it is the first chance to see many players in a game format.
“Every little thing, every detail of the game,” E.O. Smith coach James Kelly said. “It’s stance, alignment and keys. You’re just going back and going over all that again. Our seniors, they were just one year removed from playing freshman football. It’s almost re-teaching those guys, too.”
A level playing field
In a season that will have an air of uncertainty to it due to the COVID-19 climate, one thing is for sure: Most, if not all, programs will need to navigate inexperience.
“It’s something I stress to those kids,” Bellucci said. “Every team we play, most kids over there only played JV, so there’s nobody out there who has a lot more experience for you. I say that to the kids and the coaches, we’re all in the same boat. Everybody has new kids that don’t have much varsity experience. I think it’s a more even playing field than it’s probably been in a long time.”
Both Bellucci and Bloomfield coach Ty Outlaw noted because of that, there may be smaller egos among players. If there are fewer returners with a hefty list of accomplishments, there likely won’t be a sense of entitlement for playing time and roles. For the most part, every athlete now needs to prove their worth.
In the early weeks of the regular season, at least, coaches aren’t predicting picture-perfect football.
“All in all, we’re happy to be playing,” Kelly said. “But I think, to start the year, it’s going to be sloppy across the board because you’re going to have that with everybody.”