Mustangs use spring to cement gains
Out to prove 2014 no fluke, Herrmann has Taylor focused on fall
Was last season a fluke or a first step?
That’s the question Katy Taylor spent this spring preparing to answer after making the playoffs for the first time in four years and winning a bi-district title in coach Trey Herrmann’s first season. “We want to continue to be hungry, and we’ve got plenty to still be hungry for,” Herrmann said.
“We can’t be satisfied with what we did last year.”
The Mustangs wrapped spring practice with their spring game last week.
Herrmann said the game mostly was an opportunity to show off, with most of his staff’s personnel evaluations accomplished during their Saturday scrimmages. He was just glad they stayed healthy.
“We got through spring relatively healthy,” Herrmann said. “We were banged up going into it, and then somewhat throughout spring, but nothing major to where anybody’s going to be out for the season.”
Herrmann was happiest with his team’s resiliency in Year 1.
They trailed early in several contests – something he’s hoping to change this year – but kept battling.
“We’d get down early a lot of them time but we had the ability to keep playing and not get down on each other, and battle back and get some close wins,” Herrmann said. “We showed a lot of heart last year, and that’s something we definitely want to continue doing.
“One of the things we’d like to maybe improve on is not getting down early.”
The team’s priorities this spring included adding coverage packages for defending spread teams, particularly spread run teams, and tweaking a few things on offense, including blocking schemes.
“We got out of it what we needed to get out of it,” Herrmann said.
With better depth on the defensive line, the Mustangs worked on using more four-man fronts, but they’ll still base out of the 3-4.
Herrmann said they went to Georgia for help with their new coverages and found two key players to help run it this spring in Kelan Winters at middle safety and Ethan Beck as a strong cornerback.
“We ran a little bit of Cover 1 last year, flirted with it a little bit and liked it, but wanted the ability to zone off some of the stuff underneath,” Herrmann said. “So we went out to Georgia and got with Coach (Jeremy) Pruitt, who is a (Nick) Saban disciple, and learned a little bit of their match Cover 3 stuff, and that allowed us to play with Cover 1 integrity on the top end and still have zone integrity on the bottom part, so we’re not asking our inside linebackers to play man coverage.”
Offensively, sophomore Camron Horry moved from tackle to tight end.
“The big thing for us, within our blocking schemes, is it allows us to put a 255-pound kid who can block down on somebody out on the edge,” Herrmann said. “And for the more explosive part of it, he’s a 6-5 target who gives us the ability to get the ball out to him and get a lot of positive yardage that way.”
With quarterback Brett Vinzant graduating, sophomore David Perkins is preparing to take the starting reins.
“He’s a thrower,” Herrmann said. “He’s definitely a pocket guy. He’s not a runner like Vinzant was. The thing I like about him is he keeps his eyes downfield during the pass rush and he’s always able to dump the ball off to a secondary target. He gives us a good chance to open up our passing game a little bit.”
Brayten Kubecka is an emerging target at wide receiver.
The junior was up and down form junior varsity to varsity last season but stepped up his play this month.
Taylor opens weekly 7-on-7 league play Wednesday, June 3, at Cinco Ranch. It’s also at Cinco’s state qualifier Saturday.