Two area football teams will feature new coaches this fall who previously coached at two other area schools.
Former Edinburgh coach Jason Burton takes over the Jennings County program, while former South Decatur coach Tony Bell assumes the reins at Brown County.
Here is a look at those four schools heading into the 2024 season:
Jennings County
Burton takes over a program that went 5-6, but saw several players lost to graduation and a few more upperclassmen not come back.
“The numbers are a little better now than when I first took the job,” Burton said. “We had some older kids that did not return to the team. We’re going to have a lot of young kids playing as sophomores. Numbers-wise, we’re not bad, but from an experience standpoint, we have a lot of kids who are going to be gaining experience. But they’ve been a great group of kids, and they’re working hard. The nice thing about young kids is, they don’t have any bad habits yet. They only know what we’re teaching them.”
Junior Nathan Harrison, who took over at quarterback the last few games of last season, returns. Junior Brandon McCory and freshman Cam Patterson step in at running back.
Senior Mason Sorenson and junior Sam Hernandez will play at receiver. Junior Reed Wilson saw some action at tight end.
Senior Xavior Gindhart is the lone returning starter on the offensive line and will be joined at tackle by junior Konner Brown. Sophomore Cooper Lane and sophomore Gomie Gomez take over at guard, with junior Braxton McClanahan at center.
The Panthers will use a 4-3 defensive alignment. Senior Kasier Daeger and Brown will be at the ends, with Gomez and senior Kyle Womack at tackle.
Sophomores Rhett Burkman and Braxton Walton step in at middle linebacker, with Hernandez at outside linebacker. Seniors Josh Hendren and Sorensen are at cornerback, with Wilson and sophomore Ryan Clark at safety.
“We have a pretty young ballclub, so we have a lot of kids gaining experience quickly,” Burton said. “We got to see a lot of kids compete in a varsity atmosphere for the first time, so it went really well.”
Jennings will look to improve on a 1-5 record in the Hoosier Hills Conference.
“Fortunately for us, when you look at the roster makeup of a lot of our conference, there’s a lot of teams that are similar to us,” Burton said. “There’s a lot of teams in our conference that were senior-heavy last year.”
South Decatur
The Cougars lost several players to graduation after going 7-3 last season. They do have plenty of new players, however, enough to have a JV team for the first time in about a decade.
Coach Rodney Martin got a look at those players in Friday’s scrimmage with Union County.
“We were looking for certain things,” Martin said. “We saw them. Our numbers were up, so we were able to look at our JV team. We had some nice surprises, and we have some things that we need to work on for Week 1.”
South Decatur returns a major player in senior running back Corbin Johnson. Johnson rushed for 1,798 yards, including a single-game school-record 375 yards against Cloverdale, in earning Indiana Football Coaches Association Junior All-State honors.
Junior JP Scudder, who played cornerback last year, takes over at quarterback. Sophomore Jayden Jackson-Ray will join Johnson at running back.
Sophomore newcomer Cory Nugent and freshman Ryker Martin step in at receiver. Junior Garrett Huckleberry will be the wingback, and senior Ian AmRhein returns at tight end.
Senior Toby Bishop is back at tackle, and junior Layden Ponsler returns at guard. Freshmen Elan Phelps at tackle and Ladd Hampton at guard will step in, while juniors Brayden Meadowns and Eli Elrod are battling at center.
“We’re young in the offensive line,” Rodney Martin said.
The Cougars are transitioning from a 5-2 to 4-4 defense this year. AmRhein and Bishop will be the ends; and Phelps, Hampton, Ponsler and Elrod will rotate at tackle.
Scudder and Johnson will play outside linebacker, with Jackson-Ray and sophomore Kagen Wren in the middle. Huckelberry and Nugent will be the corner, and junior newcomer Malaki Roszell takes over at safety.
“We’re going to have a lot of guys going both ways,” Rodney Martin said. “We have about 14 or 15 guys who are varsity-ready, but fortunately, we have a lot of guys who can step in.”
Edinburgh
The Lancers have 33 players, up from 25 when they went 1-9 last season.
Coach Tyler DeSpain was pleased with what he saw in Friday’s scrimmage against Brown County.
“We had a certain script of plays that we wanted to run, so we just ran a small set of plays,” DeSpain said. “Defensively, I felt like our kids flew to the ball pretty well and definitely did a lot better than we have in the past.”
The Lancers return 10 starters on offense. Senior Caleb Burton is back to run the Gun-T offense, a shotgun/Wing-T look.
Senior Irving Luis-Orosco steps in at running back. Seniors Jared Myers and Luke Ballard and junior Samson Parkhurst return at receiver, and senior Eli Bryant returns at tight end.
The offensive line remains intact with seniors Dakota Graw and Landon Tetrick at tackle, seniors Jaiden Childers and Milas Burkman at guard and sophomore Kaden Miller at center.
DeSpain is switching from 3-4 to 4-2-5 defense. Burkman and senior Tyler Branigin will be at the ends, with Tetrick and junior Cooper Cordra at tackle.
Childers and Bryant are the linebackers, and Luis-Orosco will play the hybrid safety. Ballard and senior Cole White will be at corner, with Parkhurst and Myers at safety.
“The kids are learning a new defense,” DeSpain said. “We’re keeping the same offense, and there’s a lot of good leadership that we have.”
Brown County
Like Edinburgh, the Eagles went 1-9 last season, and those two teams had a chance to see how much they had improved when they scrimmaged on Friday.
“It was a very good scrimmage for us,” Bell said. “We had a good chance to get everybody some quality reps. I think we had a better look on defense than offense, but that’s typical this time of year.”
Senior Noah Lewis returns at quarterback, but is facing a challenge from junior Quentin Bell. Whichever one doesn’t play quarterback will be at running back with junior Grayson Mitchell.
Seniors Kody Shugars and Landon Scott return at receiver, where they will be joined by senior AJ Bell. Quentin and AJ Bell played for their father Tony at Crawford County the past couple years.
Senior Carter Bare returns at tackle, where he will team with sophomore Waylon Reeves. Senior JD Daughterty is back at center. Junior Eli Young will be joined by freshmen Hayden Taylor or Jayden Hash at guard.
Brown County will run a 4-3 defense. Seniors Jesse Hubbard and Lewis will be at end, with Daugherty and Bare at tackle.
Senior Tommy Buccos returns at middle linebacker, with junior Asher Stringer and sophomore Kyle Cobb stepping in outside. Quentin Bell and sophomore Logan Sallee take over at corner, with Shugars and AJ Bell at safety.
“We have some other guys that will rotate in,” Tony Bell said. “I think we have enough depth this year to not make it such a rigorous game for some guys.”
Junior Vahoti Fulton will do the kicking and punting.
“We are definitely confident that we can get some wins behind us this year,” Tony Bell said. “The kids are pretty dedicated to it. We had some pretty good turnout this summer. We’re starting to make some progress.”
