Wildcats still hungry despite last year's championship
You won't find any leftover confetti lying around El Dorado's football facilities. But the smell of last year's 6A state championship is still in the air, albeit faint. Coaches call it a championship atmosphere and the Wildcats enter the 2022 football season still riding the wave of last season's success.
El Dorado went 11-2 and finished the season with a nine-game winning streak, including a 27-17 win over Greenwood in the state championship game at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.
"Obviously, there's a lot of energy around our program still from winning the state championship in December," said El Dorado coach Steven Jones. "But our kids have had a good mindset of moving forward and not really thinking about last year. We did lose a lot of key players. I think our team is motivated right now. The community buzz is you lost a lot of players that had a lot of playing time, seven-eight starters on both sides of the ball. The kids may be hearing around town they expect us to step back this season. That's motivating them to come in here to practice every day to prove we still have the pieces to the puzzle to put together a championship run this season."
The Wildcats did graduate eight starters on defense and seven on offense. El Dorado's championship run followed seasons of 5-5 in 2020 and 4-7 in 2019.
Jones said this year's class is still hungry.
“I think it's self motivating after you win the first one," he said. "This senior class, they don't want to be the group that lets us slide back. They want to continue this thing moving forward. That's what we've seen so far from our seniors. We've had really good leadership all throughout the summer.”
Last year's senior class powered an offense that averaged 46.1 points per game. Quarterback Sharmon Rester had a record-setting season and signed with Lamar. Receiver Kamron Bibby signed as a walk-on at Arkansas. Receiver Jackie Washington signed with SAU.
The senior class helped earn El Dorado's first state track championship in the spring along with trips to state in both soccer and baseball.
“That class was, overall, just explosive athletically, very talented," said Jones. "Obviously, there was some speed there, not only on the football field but winning the state track championship last spring. They're guys that are tough to replace. Schematically, we try to fit to our personnel what we have. We've been with our guys every day all summer so we know what's coming back. We feel like we have the players in the right place to make plays and be productive. So, yeah, they're going to be tough to replace but we have some players coming back that are ready to do that.”
Jones said the Wildcats won't feature as much spread on offense but could rely more on play-action and a strong rushing attack. Senior Shadarious Plummer returns at running back and senior DeAndra Burns, Jr., is the primary receiver returning. Jamaal Green and Japhen Baker are the two returning starters on the offensive line.
When asked about adjusting the offensive philosophy to the personnel, Jones said it was pretty simple.
"It's just what's in the locker room. If you walk in the locker room and you have a lot of receivers like last season, you're probably going to be more 10 personnel, four wide, spread," he said. "We feel like we have a couple tight end and fullback bodies this year that can help us out that are athletic that can create a couple mismatches. We feel like we have a couple receivers that are going to step up that maybe didn't play a lot last season, just because of the seniors in front of them. We have some, I guess, unheralded guys that are going to play with a chip on their shoulder. I'm excited to see them get out after it.
Obviously, it was pretty simple. At this point, I've been running the same system for eight years. Some years we were four wide, some years we were two tight ends. It just depends on what you have. But the scheme and the grand picture of it all ties together. The terminology is the same. The kids are basically doing the same thing just maybe in a different spot."
On the defense, a loss perhaps just as glaring as the eight starters was defensive coordinator Trey Outlaw, who became the head coach at Texarkana. New coordinator Wes Ables kept the Wildcats in the same base 3-4 alignment.