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Lions spring back into football
By Andrew Snyder, asnyder@acnpapers.com
After a season in transition, McKinney is ready to take its game to the next level.
2010 may have been head coach Jeff Smith’s first year with the Lions, but since he was hired in January of that year, the coming season will be his first to guide the team through an entire offseason and fall schedule.
“I believe offseason is when you win a lot of football games,” Smith said. “Because you’re working not just on getting physically stronger, but you’re working on getting mentally tough.”
“I think we were pretty base last year because it was all brand new,” he said. “I think this year we’re going to be able to take more steps and add a little bit more to show a few different things we didn’t show last year. So that’s exciting.
“We’re a lot further down the road, obviously, than we were last year. We hope that’s going to pay off.”
Smith can now point to specific moments from last season to stress what he’s trying to get across. Don’t do this and Nico Ramirez scores a touchdown. Do this and you score to win the game.
Teachable moments not just for players, but for coaches.
“In many of the games last year, there were certain plays where we could say, ‘Well if we did this a little differently or if we would have executed this a little bit better or if we didn’t have this injury or that injury.’ You do a lot of that.”
McKinney had several games last season that would leave a coach wondering what if. The Lions finished with a 4-6 record overall and went 3-4 in district play to just miss out on the playoffs.
“Every one we were in the game,” Smith said.
One more win would have made the difference, and two of the Lions district losses came by one touchdown or less. One, a 23-20 loss to Wylie in the district opener, came by a field goal.
The Pirates would go on to advance all the way to the state semifinals.
Smith said their success didn’t surprise him, in part because of the district schedule they had to fight through to just make the playoffs. Nearly beating a team that successful is enough to give the Lions a full stockpile of confidence.
“Our kids know that they can play with those guys and beat anybody they want to beat, we’ve just got to go out and execute,” Smith said.
McKinney may still have plenty of questions left to address before next season, but it gets a pass on one of the more pressing for many teams around the area: Who’s playing quarterback?
The Lions could potentially have that question answered two years running. Robert Somborn won the starting job last season as a sophomore, so he’ll be returning and ready to add pages to his repertoire.
“It is exciting to have guys like Robert back that have played a year, and now you can really take your scheme to another level,” Smith said. “Because they’ve played and executed what you’ve asked them to execute.”
Smith added that the team will still be young overall, as it had several sophomores see significant playing time in 2010. Another player out of that group he expects to continue making big contributions is linebacker Marquez Husband.
At least he was a linebacker last year. In the coming season, Smith plans to shift him to running back, a position he’s played before, to take over for graduating seniors Travis Tarver II and Damion Willis.
Big shoes to fill considering that both will soon be playing college football – Willis at Missouri Southern and Tarver at Abilene Christian – but Smith expects Husband to turn a few heads.
“I think he’s going to be a pleasant surprise,” he said.
McKinney lost four offensive and five defensive starters to graduation, though Husband moving to running back and some players seeing time on both sides of the ball shifts the Lions’ needs somewhat.
And while Somborn may be back, McKinney still has to find a way to keep him protected. Only one starter from the offensive line last season, center Marshall Agan, will return.
Outside of other varsity players coming back, the Lions will look to their JV and freshmen teams to plug holes. They found a number of young players worthy of an upgrade last season, and already a few current freshmen have shown promise. A group of about 10 could make the jump, including potential wide receiver T.V. Williams and defensive ends Kennan Samuel and Nick Barber.
There are about twice as many JV players who could move up.
In the meantime, the Lions coaching staff will continue studying district opponents and refining their own play through daily spring practices that kicked off Monday. The team will scrimmage each week, culminating in the annual spring game at Ron Poe Stadium on May 26.
The setup this year will be different than the traditional blue vs. gold format that split players into separate, and often mismatched, teams to play a traditional game. This year, the Lions will just pit their best offensive players against their best defensive ones and score points according to how well each does.
The offense will get marks for first downs and touchdowns, and the defense will rack up points via turnovers and three-and-outs, among other things.
Before then, the McKinney coaching staff will be hard at work assembling the best lineup to put on display.
“That’s what’s great about spring football,” Smith said. “You get 18 days to find out who’s going to fill those roles and give you a really good idea of what you’re team is going to look like going into the fall.”
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