New faces not a problem for Knights
Brantley folding young talent into Elkins’ matrix to stage another title assault
Elkins has a lot of new faces under its football helmets this season. The Knights do not expect the inexperience to mean a bad record is on the horizon.
Just the opposite, actually. They plan to flourish.
Several times during coach Dennis Brantley’s first five seasons Elkins has lost talented senior classes. Every year the Knights reload and field a competitive team. They have made the playoffs four of the last five years.
That’s why bringing back so few experienced players does not stop Brantley from dreaming big.
“We expect to make it to the playoffs and to be in position to play for the district championship,” Brantley said. “We think we’re going to be pretty good. We have developed a pretty solid program.”
Brantley said the Knights had a similar amount of returning experience in 2013 but rode the arm and legs of QB Jonathan Giles to the third round of the playoffs where it took a match-up against Katy to eliminate them.
They don’t have Giles this year, but they do have junior QB Luke Leblanc, who is bigger with a stronger arm and has a little bit of running ability.
The Knights have had dual-threat QBs every season under Brantley. He said Leblanc is enough of a running threat that the offense will not have to change. Leblanc quarterbacked the junior varsity last year but did get one game at the varsity level in the last game of the regular season.
Leblanc will have the good fortune of working behind an offensive line that returns four starters. They are led by Luke Matthews, another boy in the long line of family with experience at the highest level of the game.
Two of Elkins best proven players are on a speedy defense with linebacker Kenneth Murray and defensive end Kenneth Orji. Both are Division I-caliber recruits and should give the Knights a good start on that side of the ball.
“Our young guys will make mistakes early. We expect that,” Brantley said. “But we don’t expect too many.”
Elkins and the rest of the district expect the 23-5A title to go through Manvel, which drops down in classification after three consecutive trips to the regional final in the state’s highest classificaiton. Manvel has a lot of bigname talent to replace but is expected to be loaded once again. The Mavericks begin the season ranked No. 4 in the state by Dave Campbell’s Texas Football. They are the top team in Region 3.
“Everbody knows what they have done for the last few years,” Brantley said. “That puts all the pressure on them. Elkins and Marshall and Texas City and the others in the district that is going to be a big game for all of us.”
Win or lose against Manvel, Elkins still expects to have a big season. The Knights are 39-17 with one district championship under Brantley. They see no reason why this year cannot yield another season of nine or more wins.
“We just don’t want to be a one-hit wonder,” Brantley said. “We have been to the playoffs four of the last five years. Our expectation is to be better every year. We don’t want to have a drop off when you have a good senior class move out.”