After a two-year hiatus, the familiar sounds of spring football echoed in the bleachers of Shelton Stadium at Hays High last week.
But as players work to acclimatize themselves to practice five days in, Hays head coach Neal LaHue and his staff began to focus on the fundamentals for a program that is projected to return 14 total starters next season.
“I like spring football. It’s one of those things where I feel like we benefit,” LaHue said. “We don’t set the depth chart, but we at least start it and have a good idea.”
LaHue, who enters his fifth season at Hays, brought spring football back in order to limit how much competition his team has prior to the grind of the regular season.
By going through summer drills for the past two seasons, Hays has had roughly three weeks of practices and two scrimmages to work with. But with drawing a week 11 bye the last two seasons, Hays played 12 straight games, including scrimmages.
Going through spring ball, LaHue said the Rebels lose a scrimmage, but gain 11 more practices they wouldn’t have during the summer.
“The other thing is we still have too many unanswered questions going into the scrimmages and we didn’t answer them well enough ... We’ll try to do that now in a controlled setting.” Neal LaHue, Rebel football coach
For coaches, LaHue said the staff needed to act like a “new staff coming in,” which meant changing approaches when it came to weightlifting, speed and agility training. LaHue said the staff is also opening up competition on the field and they’re not going to follow the “status quo.”
“We’re not going to say, ‘oh my gosh, we have a tough district.’ To heck with that,” LaHue said. He added the staff went and studied strength, speed and flexibility training and got ideas. The idea has been to gear the students toward spring ball, which they hope will be followed with the Rebels’ power camp in the offseason.
“We have to come in to camp in shape because we’ve got seven less practices than we did last year. But we gained 18 practices in the spring, so we’re still ahead of the game,” LaHue said.
On the field, improving techniques and fundamentals is the goal, even though players aren’t working for a game, but a “beneficial outcome in the end,” LaHue said.
On offense, LaHue has been pleased with the play of Cade Powell, Thailand Mayberry, Dallin Roberts and Martin Shoemaker.
All four quarterbacks playing during the spring, including Gentry Brawith and Tyler Conley, who saw action during the 2016 campaign, have played well so far, LaHue said. Having Brawith and Conley gain varsity experience will help early on.
“We still have to work on fundmentals, but I feel those those two seniors have much to gain,” LaHue said.
Pat Guerrero and Nate Tate showed progress so far during spring, while on defense, Jason Eddleman, Sam Guzman and Dom Johnson are a handful of players on the front seven who have made an impact. In the secondary, LaHue said he’s been impressed with the corner play of Blaze Thomas and Hector Fuentes.
“We feel good now. We’ve got guys who have seen the varsity field,” LaHue said. “We’ve got a good nucleus of guys coming back.”
But also ensuring the players don’t burn out before the end of spring practices is also a priority for LaHue.
A shift to three practices per week, with one day of weight training and film study, is how LaHue hopes to curb that issue.
“The first three days, they’re excited, it’s spring. But then they say, ‘what are we working for?,’” LaHue said. “You have to remind them we’re trying to get better as a team and better at our techniques and fundamentals.”
