Falcons in a rebuilding mode
It was apparent last Saturday at Davis Wade Stadium when freshman running back Kylin Hill touched the football for the first time.
The former Columbus Falcon athlete took it off the right side and barreled his way to a 19-yard gain in his first college snap for a first time. He rushed two more times right after that and pushed Mississippi State into the red zone setting up an Aeris Williams touchdown.
For Hill to make that kind of impact in the Southeastern Conference right away meant that the Falcons were losing one heck of a running back. Coach Randal Montgomery is breaking in many new faces at several positions and it’s led to some frustrating times early on, but he believes they’ll be better off in the end.
“I think the issue right now is we don’t have a lot of game reps,” Montgomery said. “Until we see game situations, that’s the only way we can get better. We’ve played two really good opponents and we learned a lot from those games.
“We’ve had a good week of practice.The thing we talk about is just getting better. We talk about being better in second half than we were in the first and we’ll go from there.”
The opening three games of their schedule are not kind. Columbus traveled to West Point to take on the state’s top team in week one and left with a 42-14 loss. The Falcons went to Noxubee County in week two and fell 34-9. This week, they have to travel to Starkville completing murderer’s row to start the year.
The toughest part of the schedule is playing those games with many newcomers. Quarterback C.J. Gholar was a big part of the offense with Hill and the two combined for 4,068 yards of total offense a season ago and 42 touchdowns.
Montgomery has had seven different players carry the football in the first two games this year trying to get some production to replace Hill. Junior
Laterius Stowers has limited experience at quarterback as well.
While the offensive unit has some room to grow, Montgomery has seen a spark from his defense.
“We’ve got a couple of guys on defense that played a little bit last year,”
Montgomery said. “We have one guy that has been a three-year starter at defensive end and has played really well.
We only have two guys back on offense and we’re still trying to put some pieces together there.”
Fellow coach Chris Jones can relate to the rebuilding process that Montgomery is going through as he has to deal with replacing players every year. He sees some potential for the Falcons that will simply take time.
“i think they lost a lot last year,” Jones said. “They had two really good backs last year that are playing on the next level. Right now they’re just trying to find their playmakers.”
As for this week’s game against the Yellowjackets, Montgomery wants his team to continue to get better. He’s hoping that the tough competition early can be something to build on and not something that breaks down his young squad.
“I really just want to see us put some things together offensively,” Montgomery said. “Last week our defense did a great job keeping us in the game. We need to sustain some drives. We’ve already punted 15 times this year after punting 32 all of last year. Let’s see if we can start by putting some things together.”