Dragons have high expectations, return 14 seniors
REDWATER, Texas— Redwater has its sights set high after a 5-6 football season last fall.
The Dragons return 14 lettermen for 2017. In the program, Redwater has 14 seniors, 20 juniors, 15 sophomores and 30 freshmen.
“We feel real good about our seniors that are coming back,” veteran head coach Tommy Graf said. “It’s not a huge group, but it’s bigger than we had last year. When you go through the roster, it’s a strong group in the sense that most every one of them are contributors.
“They’re giving us some of that leadership we want to see.”
The Dragons have run the same system from junior high to varsity under Graf, who is in his 10th year at the school, sixth as head coach.
“Our summer weight program is solid; it could be better,” Graf said. “But we have a core that’s always there, and a lot of the young ones are showing up consistently. Our football practices have been good. Having that many kids out has made the coaches be creative with our drills and what we’re doing.
“Our kids have been in system; they’re familiar with the defensive scheme and offense.”
The Dragons return 3 of 4 starters in the secondary.
“That group may be a step ahead of the three levels of defense, as far as linemen, linebackers and secondary,” Graf said. “We’ve got some kids who have played linebacker and they’re hard-nosed, so they’ll be ready. It’s up front where we have to have some questions answered. We only return one, so we’re going to have to have some of these younger guys step up for us.”
End Colton Bradford (6-2, 220) is the lone returnee on the defensive line as he starts his senior year. The other spots have been filled by committee with James Perry (6-3, 206), Garrett Harp (6-0, 220), Mason Craig (6-5, 165), Ben Culp (5-9, 208) and Trevor Oakes (5-11, 205) are some of the players vying for the other three line positions.
“A lot of those kids have played for us,” Graf said. “They might have played sparingly on defense or been a starter on offense, so they’ve been in the fire, just now they’re going to be in the fire on both sides of the ball.”
The Dragons are also platooning the linebacker spots, hunting the right combination of players.
Dylan Roberts (5-8, 185) started at sam linebacker last year
as a sophomore, Matt Williams, Dalton Graf, Mason McCloskey (5-9, 170), Grant Hickerson (6-3, 190) and Jordan Hamms are splitting time at linebacker.
“We’ve got to have some kids step up who haven’t played there before,” Graf said. “But I think they’re up for the challenge. They’re blue-collar kids who work hard every day, and it’s their time to take over and get it done.”
Returning in the secondary are Lavoundrick Vaughn (5-10, 170) at cornerback, Seth Lathrop (5-10, 150) is a returning safety, and Peyton Davis (6-3, 200) was a safety, and Mason Robertson (5-10, 150) played significant paying time at corner.
“We’ll lean on our secondary, and we put a lot on our safeties to be able to cover, tackle and step up and hit someone,” Graf said. “It’s a luxury when you’ve got experienced players back there. We also return quite a bit of our front (on offense); we’re going to be solid up front but we don’t have a lot of depth.”
Redwater brings back four linemen on offense.
Bradford will be back at left tackle, with Perry backing him up. Roberts is back at left guard, Culp returns at center, with Hamms adding depth there, and Oakes returns at right tackle. Harp backs up Oakes, and Cabe McCoy is the newcomer to the line at right guard Hickerson is also returning at tight end.
“It’s a luxury that we didn’t have to stop and reteach the kids,” Graf said. “It helps us speed our practice up. If you can stay away from injury and thongs you don’t have control over, that group will be a solid group. They’re worker kids and get after it.”
Lathrop took approximately 35 percent of the snaps last year at quarterback, and he is in a competition with junior Jonah Ketchum and sophomore Garrett Johnson for the starting job.
Austin Warlick (5-7, 200) returns at fullback, and Davis returns at running back in the 2-back system. Vaughn and Robertson are sharing the other running back spot.
Joe Hendrix is the placekicker and also returns at receiver, and Justin White is another senior receiver. There are 7 or 8 more players working at receiver.
“We’re going to set our expectations as high as we can,” Graf said. “Our goal every year is always the same. We want to win every game we play, we want to win district titles and then we want to win a state title. We shoot for the stars, and if we hit the moon we’ll take it.
“With that being said, our district is a very tough district. Our non-district schedule is tough, and if we come out of that healthy we’ve got to show up each week. We have to have our best every Friday night.”