Marshall County Football Preview
‘Compete’ will be the Rockies mantra
PLYMOUTH — A new coach, a new system, and a new year make this year ’s Rockies impossible to predict.
“We want to see progress,” said first-year Plymouth coach Adam Handley. “This is a process, taking a program that has been very successful and bringing that back. We’ve been talking about trusting the strides we are making and it will help the program. This class of seniors has had a rough couple of years but they can be the group that starts to pierce through whatever it was that may not have been working.”
Handley took over the Rockie program late in the spring and has been learning on the fly ever since.
“We just got into full pads so we are still trying to get all that figured out,” he said. “We have a small senior class in numbers so the younger grades — in terms of numbers right now — are carrying us which is good for down the road but this year we are looking at having some of those guys contributing at the varsity level.”
“We have a good solid starting 11 on offense and nearly a whole different set of players on defense which is huge to have to get extra reps during the week in practice and prepare for teams on Friday night,” said Handley.
“We are really young in our linebacking corp and a lot of our ‘D’ lineman are still pretty raw when it comes to varsity experience.”
While everybody is a new face, the offensive side of the ball has brought a smile to the new boss’s face.
“Offensively we are about the same (in terms of experience) on the offensive line,” said Handley.
Our running backs are new the quarterback is all new the receiving corp is all new. It is a good thing in that we don’t have to tell them to forget everything that they’ve learned up to this moment because they weren’t at the varsity level to be taught a year ago.”
“We are 100 percent different in terms of verbiage and terminology,” said Handley of the offense. “Defensively we’ve kept some of the same stuff and just fine-tuned it to what we want it to be. We are probably right where we want to be coming into our scrimmage. We will continue to install base formations and plays for the next couple of weeks but the basic offense is installed pretty much.”
The learning curve is the biggest determining factor in playing time to start the season.
“I guess it’s really kind of tough love, but we told them whoever is the first one to pick it up, those are the guys that are going to play,” said Handley. “We have to have guys that understand and run what we want them to run. Maybe they aren’t as quick a learner and it will take until week two for you to figure it out and then you help us out but we are at the point where whoever has it figured out and whoever is able to accomplish what we want is going to get to play.”
“Some of those younger guys may get the shot to play if they are further along than the older guys,” he said. “Our lineup will probably be changing from now until the Warsaw game. It all depends on where people fall into place.”
“Lord willing you don’t have any big injuries but those kinds of things happen at some point. We have a lot of guys getting a lot of reps at a lot of positions right now just in preparation for any situation.”
With good numbers in the sophomore and freshman ranks it has allowed the luxury of breaking out the freshman class for special work.
“We have a couple of freshman coaches (Payton Skirvin, Ben Nixon) who have been able to rep a lot of stuff with them completely different from the varsity group,” said Handley. “That sophomore group, I feel, that about half of them will make contributions on the varsity level.”
“Once they figure out how fast the game is on Friday night I think that it will be good for them. Once they see it and get their feet wet they will figure it out because they are competitors.”
“We are possibly going into week one with two quarterbacks,” said Handley. “We feel both of them do things well and can help us with a little change of pace with Exander Ramirez and Caden Milliser.
Up front, we have some guys that we think are going to hold the load with (Thad) Pletcher, (Tanner) Gault and (Kyle) Umbaugh.”
“Pletcher will see some time on the other side of the ball too with Chris Johnson and David Sills and C.J. DeLee at the end.”
One word has been in constant repetition early on.
“I just want to see us compete,” said Handley. “That’s something that we’ve been hammering home all summer long is to find a way to compete. Any drill we are doing, any activity we are doing in practice find a way to compete. You can tell very quickly how well they believe they can fight and compete with whoever they are playing or how quickly they say we are going to lay down and let it happen.”
“When you compete and a couple of good bounces or a couple of good calls go your way and you are right in the football game.”