Wildcat coach sees early want-to on field
After more than a week of practice, Watson Chapel High School Coach Jared Dutton has noticed a certain level of desire from his players to return to championship contention in 2021.
Toward the end of last week, the Wildcats had to turn around from an evening practice to work out again starting at 6 the next morning.
“It has been one of our best weeks that I can think about overall, with our kids’ effort, our kids’ want-to and our kids showing up,” the eighth-year Wildcats chief said. “It really has. We kind of bragged on them Friday.”
All but two players showed up that Friday morning, Dutton said, adding their effort spoke to the team’s discipline and character.
“It’s still the fact that you
don’t take anything for granted,” Dutton said, pointing out that the impact of covid-19 could be a motivating factor. “Who knew in 2020 the spring sports would have their seasons cut short? And, so, whenever you go through something like that, it makes you truly look at everything differently from how you used to, to where you just knew football was going to happen this time of year, or you just knew everything was always going to be in place, but as of right now, you don’t know.”
Said senior linebacker Rocky Foster: “We’re just trying to do what we’ve got to do to win games and get to the playoffs.”
Watson Chapel is scheduled to visit Star City, Dutton’s alma mater, in a benefit scrimmage starting at 6 p.m. Aug. 17. That’s 10 days before the Wildcats visit Pine Bluff High School in a season opener that was called off last year due to the effects of the pandemic.
On the field, senior defensive lineman Lamar Jefferson expects to see a fair share of challenges from the opposition due to the Wildcats’ team size.
“But this year, in practice, I’ve seen a lot of effort from everybody,” Jefferson said. “I believe we can at least make it pretty far, depending on how hard we work.
“You see other guys bigger and better than you, that makes you want to get bigger and better. We have this one guy, Chris Urquhart, he’s about 5 feet, but guess what? The hardest worker I know out of everybody.”
Defensive coordinator John Welch is looking to help the Wildcats get to kickoff, hoping he can use as many players as possible in their three nonconference games to build dept. Watson Chapel will play at Hot Springs Lakeside on Sept. 10 and host Camden Fairview on Sept. 17.
“We’ve got an opportunity,” Welch said. “Our defensive line and our linebackers are going to be our strength. Those are where we have the most returners, at those positions.”
What the Wildcats may otherwise lack in size, they find in senior defensive linemen Earnest Harris (6-4, 330 pounds) and Jefferson (6-5, 280), who may also spend time on the offensive line. Jefferson indicated he embraces his role as a senior leader.
“It’s been feeling different because the last few years except for 11th grade, I’ve been taking a backseat in a leadership role,” he said. “But this year, I’ve been really trying to step up and help out our team.”
The Wildcats have developed a trademark of all 11 defenders rushing to the ball carrier and breaking out of a huddle with a yell of “Swarm!” during practice, emphasizing a key aspect of Welch’s 4-2-5 defense.
“The thing we say a lot is ‘Swarm,’ because everybody needs to get to the ball,” Foster said. “If everybody swarms to the ball, we’re going to stay 100 percent on defense.”
The main question mark for the Wildcats defense rests in the secondary, which graduated all-state cornerbacks Damarione Woodson and Chris Richardson.
“I just can’t find all-state corners all over the place, but that’s why we were able to run a lot of man last year,” Welch said. “We’re going to rely more on zone this year.”
Watson Chapel’s base defense is a 4-2-5 alignment, but the Wildcats ran a 4-3 scheme last year when they were short on linebackers, Welch said. The Wildcats use a rover, or linebacker-secondary combination, in their base defense.
“Depth-wise, we’re looking at 36 players overall,” Welch said. “If we can get with the offense and start 22 guys all together starting the season off, that’s only going to help us as we move on in the season.”