Team speed to be key for football team

Hungry Horse News

After reaching the Montana Class A football playoffs last season, the Columbia Falls High School football team has loftier goals heading into the fall.

Despite having to replace a majority of last year's production both offensively and defensively, coach John Thompson and the Wildcats remain positive, yet realistic, about the upcoming season.

"Obviously we'd love to make it back into the playoffs," he said. "But we realize it'll take a ton of work to get there."

Relying on a potent group of seniors last year, the Wildcats rumbled to a 5-4 overall record, 3-2 in the conference, and met a talented Stevensville team in the first round of the playoffs, ultimately losing 41-14.

Using a run-first, ball control approach, the Wildcats gained yards on the ground throughout the season, an offensive philosophy that will more than likely continue this year.

Due to the loss of most of the starters, Thompson believes that a general lack of experience could contribute to some early mistakes, but said the team has a ferocious attitude, one that will help them work through any rough play.

"Our weakness is inexperience and our strength is our attitude and overall team quickness," he said.

Thompson said that this year's team speed will be an asset, something he hopes to build upon as the season progresses.

"We're going to try and take advantage of that," he said. "I'd love to just be able to run the ball, but you have to have a good mix of pass and run. It's very demoralizing if a team can just run all over you."

But Thompson also understands the lack of experienced starters could result in some difficult situations.

"We're so young, we have very few returning starters," he said. "Our main goal is to make sure we execute properly, both offensively and defensively."

Thompson said the offensive strategy will revolve around the running game, using a lot of play action passes to give the quarterbacks time and a lot of misdirection to give the tailbacks a place to run.

"Last year we threw pretty well, and it will kind of be the same this year," he said. "Our passing game is based on our running game, we need to establish the run … We have a lot of two back sets and we have some single back sets. We predominantly run out of the I (formation) or the split backs and we run our play action off that. We've got a very talented group of running backs, just not a lot of experience."

Defensively, the unit will have a new look this year, as the team switches from a 4-3 defense to a version of the 3-4, an attempt to take advantage of the speedy linebackers and minimize size discrepancies along the defensive line.

"We're gonna actually play a version of the 3-4," Thompson said. "We're doing that just because of the speed we have."

With fall practices underway, Thompson said the team is progressing, but that a lot of positions are still up for grabs.

"Right now, we're a week in and some kids have definitely got an upper hand on some positions," he said. "A lot of things are undecided still, but each and every kid that comes out for football deserves a fair shake."

With senior Greg Macijunas the only returning starter on defense and no returning experienced quarterbacks, Thompson said that the early stages of the season will be a learning experience for everyone.

"It's a real good group of kids to work with," he said. "Hopefully we get better each week."