Calhoun finishes three weeks of spring ball
♦ Yellow Jackets have a lot of veterans returning one year after they had very few
As you read this, the Calhoun High School football team has finished another spring football season.
The annual gold-and-white game has been played.
And even though it’s still a few months away, it’s now full-steam ahead towards getting ready for the 2023 opener against former Region 7-5A nemesis Blessed Trinity on Friday, August 18 in Roswell.
Last year at this time, they had one returning starter on defense and two on offense from a team that reached the GHSA 5A state championship game in 2021 before losing to Warner Robins.
Head coach Clay Stephenson believed, however, they had a group with the right stuff to keep the winning going, but that group was a whole bunch of juniors and sophomores that were unproven and untested.
But today, those same players represent a large swath of returning starters and back-ups on both sides of the football with all those then-newbies now a group of veterans with 13 varsity football games, including three playoff games, under their belts.
And they know what its takes to be successful, winning the Region 7-5A championship (for may of them as first-year starters)last year and now they have that crown to defend.
Last year, one of the mottos was “no starters, no backups,” because there were so many unknowns that they wanted the players to think in terms of being ready to play, whether they went out on the field first. Or second. Or even third.
But it appears right now, the coaches definitely have a line on who their starters are and who their backups will be.
There are a few spots — like the offensive line and the secondary — where they were hit hard by graduation, but a lot of positions seem intact this year.
They return starting quarterback Trey Townsend, who threw for over 2,000 yards last year. And they have a lot of guys who showed last year they can catch the football with at least eight players coning back who had 10 or more receptions.
Running back Caden Williams, who was just shy of 1,000 yards on the ground and has verbally committed to play at Liberty University, will lead a running game that has a few other solid players behind him.
Junior tight end Emaree Winston is back and the man who is being pursued by virtually every Power-5 school in the country, received an this week offer from Coach Prime, also known as Deion Sanders, to play at the University of Colorado.
And Calhoun has nice depth at that spot with junior Ben Williams back for his senior season
and when Winston was used in the direct snap a lot late last year before his season-ending injury, Williams was the man at tight end and played very well.
If there is a spot they are lacking experience at offensively, it might be up front with Brody Balliew, Lance Mauldin and Kelly Wells all having graduated and Balliew and Wells now headed to play in college. But two-year starter junior Christian Bell, along with Thomas Wells, are back and it seems the Yellow Jackets have some other young players that are ready to step in and do the job.
Defensively, the Yellow Jackets may have lost their leader from last year in linebacker Mason Fuller, but they have a big group of experienced players back in the fold this year.
Junior Kristyane Gregory and freshman Sager Quinn were two-thirds of a line that by the end of last year, was disrupting opposing offenses and keeping quarterbacks awake at night. Bell was that third linemen at times last year and those three wreaked havoc with Quinn finishing the year with nearly 10 sacks and Gregory having six more.
And this is another area where
there are some other younger players coming along that may be ready to do the same when their time comes.
The Yellow Jackets had a number of linebackers making plays last year, and juniors Christian Smith and Brooks Brannon are the two returning starters with Fuller graduating. Junior Montaze Byrd is another outside LB who was in the other team’s backfield last year with his rushing ability so the team should again have top-notch linebacker play.
They did lose some very good players in the secondary like starting cornerbacks Dustin Kerns and Cam Curtis, but again, they used a number of players in the secondary last year after losing a Division One-type crop from 2021, so the candidates to be able to defend the pass appear to be there.
Junior Stover Morgan, sophomore Makadin Griffin, junior Issac Green, and junior Jacob Schuler, were among those who played well in the secondary last year.
Punter Andrew Purdy is back and he had a great year in 2022 for the Yellow Jackets, helping them win the field position battle that head coach Clay Stephen
son stresses. And besides hitting them far, Purdy also consistently hit them high, giving the coverage team time to cover and kill any hopes of a big return.
They also have all three of their kickers from last year back with junior Sergio Sanchez now healthy again to go along with sophomores Carlos Lopez and Bryan Sebastian-Ramos. All three did the job last year when their numbers were called, whether it
was making all the extra points or Calhoun was rattling someone’s nerves with their sky-high, pooch-style kickoffs.
And all those players coming back don’t include the influx of talented boys coming in from the Region winning junior varsity and freshman teams.
So another spring session is in the books.
And the Calhoun High School football is doing just fine.