Scott Swanson
To get a grip on this year’s Sweet Home football team, it helps to remember last year, when the Huskies paid their dues as a sophomore-dominated football team.
Starting the season with a brand new offense and a dearth of experience, the Sweet Home got a slap upside the head in a 35-2 loss in their opener at Hidden Valley. Then things started to improve, rapidly.
Those sophomores figured things out quickly and, although they finished with a 3-6 record, Sweet Home actually made the playoffs by winning the right games – and a coin toss, playing Marshfield even up until halftime before they ran out of gas and the hosts pulled away.
Now the Huskies are a year older, bigger and stronger, and experienced beyond their years. They’re also ready to even some scores, Coach Dustin Nichol said.
They also know their single-back spread read-option offense, which was a departure from the run-oriented Power I and pistol offenses the Huskies have employed in recent years.
“The driving force for that change was our clientele,” Nichol said. “It was the size of kids coming up, it was the type of kids, the mentality of the kids. I just think this type of offense fits this group of kids.”
It also meant a steep learning curve for everyone – “our coaching staff and players needed to increase quickly if we were going to find any success.”
He said coaches used Central Catholic’s system as a base and built their own variation from there.
“I had to do a lot of work last year to wrap my head around it,” Nichol said. “This year it is building off of that base, tweaking it to fit our needs, making it our own this year. That’s what we’re doing.”
The Huskies have responded, he said.
“The kids are having a lot of fun with it right now. We’re kind of putting our stamp on it.”
He said players have told him that, as they wound up two-a-days last week, they felt the team was where it was in Week Three or Four last year.
“The kids see that they’re a lot further at this point than we were last year. That’s building some confidence with what we feel. We have some opportunities, going forward.”
With quarterback Dan Virtue graduated, junior Colton Smith (5-11, 175), a starter last year at wide receiver and last year’s back-up quarterback, will take over the reins of the team on offense.
“Colton was excited because he saw that it would be the best thing for our team,” Nichol said. Sophomore Casey Tow (6-0, 160) provided some competition for the spot, but Smith’s experience and leadership made the choice “obvious,” Nichol said. “Casey took (Smith’s) spot at receiver. It was an easy and good transition.”
Tow is one of a deep receiving corps, led by last year’s leading receiver, senior Keegan Holly (5-10, 165), who finished with 328 catches for 352 yards.
Nichol noted that Holly and Smith were both second-team all-leaguers last year at receiver “behind two all-state receivers from Cottage Grove. “Keegan and Colton both did an extremely good job last year.
“I’m excited about the leadership Keegan’s bringing on both sides of the ball,” Nichol said.
Junior Nathan Virtue (6-0, 170) returns after spending much of last season injured, though he “finished strong,” Nichol said. Others are seniors Nick Marler (5-9, 165), Conner Russell (5-10, 150) and Austin Stevens (5-9, 160), and juniors Jake Swanson (6-3, 180) and Lance Hansen (6-0, 180).
Stevens may be a sort of X factor, having played football in junior high but this will be his first year at the high school level after playing a key role in helping the soccer team to its first-ever playoff berth last year.
“I think he’s one of the fastest, if not the fastest, kids in the school,” Nichol said. “We’ve got him out for football and we can use him in some fly sweeps and getting him some space on some screens, things of that nature. When he starts picking things up, he’s going to be fun to watch.”
He said Stevens may also handle kicking and punting duties.
“The more he learns the system, the more he’s going to get used on Friday nights.”
Junior Hayden McDonald (5-7, 165) will lead a group of running backs that will include senior Austin James (6-0, 175), who moves from slot receiver, and junior Boe Baxter (5-6, 155), who moves up from the junior varsity.
“I’m really comfortable with any of those three going in any time of the game and producing for us,” Nichol said. “They got schooled as sophomores last year. The experience they got is nice to have.”
He said Hanson and Stevens will play slot back at times as well.
The offensive line, one of the Huskies’ weakest areas last year with so many young players on the varsity, will be bigger, stronger and more experienced.
“I thought last year that was our biggest struggle,” Nichol said. “We had juniors and sophomores playing on the line, just learning the offense. That’s tough. A year’s worth of physical development makes a big difference when you’re talking about where the big dogs are at.
“We have guys who got good reps last year and have grown and have a year’s worth of physical maturity.”
Anchoring the line will be junior Kelton Gaskey (6-4, 245), seniors Austin Griffin (5-10, 190) and Bryce Coulter (6-0, 190), together with juniors Austin Olin (5-7, 190), Noah Moore (5-10, 180), Johnny Lynn (5-7, 170), Blake Keeney ((5-11, 170) and Levi Baird (6-1, 190).
“Those guys from last year, they got schooled pretty good and now it’s their turn to do some schooling,” Nichol said. “I’m really happy with the depth we’ve got. We kind of took it on the chin a little last year, but we’ve created depth this year by getting a lot of people through those positions last year. It brings back a lot of experience, moving forward.”
Individuals from that group will also handle defensive line duties, he said.
Linebacker duties will be shared by Coulter, Swanson, McDonald and Baxter.
The defensive secondary will be anchored by Holly, Marler, Hanson and others from the receiving corps, including junior Nate Jeppson (5-9, 170), up from the JV.
Rounding out the varsity are: juniors Hayden Nichol, who has proved to be literally an all-purpose player, Parker Lemmer, Christian Morris, Austin Sills, Caden Knight, Robbie Yunke and Damion Shocker; and sophomores Seven Carson, Jasper Korn, Parker Lemmer, Tye Moore, Gavin Nichol, Travis Thorpe and Peyton Ullrich, some of whom will swing with the JV.
Nichol said a big emphasis this year is to reduce the amount of time players spend on offense and defense and special teams.
Team numbers is an issue, particularly when the Huskies face larger schools such as Marshfield.
Sweet Home, as of last week, numbered 65 – just short of last year’s starting total, which was 58 at the end of the season.
Last year at Marshfield, Sweet Home trailed 21-20 at halftime. Sweet Home had 27 players in uniform, 19 of them sophomores. Marshfield had 52 on its roster.
“It was 35-20 halfway through the third quarter and then the wheels fell off the bus. They scored 28 points in the fourth quarter because we simply ran out of gas. Our guys worked their butts off, to their credit, but they could only do so much. When you’re playing at that level and that intensity, you can’t sustain that for 48 minutes.”
This year the coaching staff is trying to create depth to alleviate that problem somewhat.
“Our goal is to limit that,” Nichol said. “We’re going to try to put best players on the field all the time, when the time is right and we need them. But if we have seven or eight three-way starters, like we did the last three years, is not good.
“If we could, we’d have 11 guys on offense and 11 guys on defense.”
He said he hopes to have most of his starters playing on one side of the ball for most of the game by the time the league season starts.
Nichol expects the Sky-Em Conference to be “competitive” this year, he said.
“Right now I don’t really see anyone just being that perennial power.”
They’re all going to be tough, he predicted.
A big one will be Cottage Grove, which went to the 4A championship game last year, where it lost to North Bend 35-21.
“Cottage Grove can score on any play. Gary Roberts does a great job. Any time they touch the ball, it can be a touchdown. It doesn’t matter where you’re at on the field.”
“Elmira, I don’t know where they grow those guys at, but they get big guys out there. They just go Spartan on you and just go marching down the field. You’ve got that smash-mouth style of football there.”
He said he suspects Junction City, which has in recent years also played a smash-mouth style, with misdirection and foot-to-foot splits, may be modifying its offensive attack.
Sisters plays a Wing-T style of offense, “kind of a double wing with a passing threat – they hit you from all directions.”
Sutherlin has not fielded strong teams in recent years, but its baseball and basketball programs are generally in the thick of things.
“If they could get some of those basketball and baseball players to go out for football, Sutherlin could be tough,” Nichol said.
“A lot of people graduated, but I don’t know what to expect. Everybody’s a contender for the league title. I hope it won’t be a three-way tie for something.”
The league decided last year to stop holding coin tosses, which gave Sweet Home a playoff berth over Elmira last year, as tie-breakers. In the future, it will rely on OSAA power rankings to determine who goes to the playoffs.
But that was then. This is now, and the Huskies open with Hidden Valley at home at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 2 – and some memories, specifically a fourth-quarter pass for a touchdown on the last play to finalize that 35-2 win.
“I’m looking to smack them around a little bit,” Nichol said. “I’m looking for a little redemption. They scored kind of a cheap one and that didn’t sit very well with me.
“Sometimes, what goes around comes around. That’s all I can say.”