Chuck Larsen
Football practices officially start on Tuesday and Grady County teams are gearing up for the season.
First-year coach Rick VanCleave takes over a young Fightin’ Chick team and will have to find someone to take over for quarterback Wyatt Kinnamon, who accounted for much of the team’s offensive production last year.
Sophomores Chase Rodgers and Chance Thomas are expected to battle it out for that job.
Two seniors will be either quarterback’s “go-to” guys – tailback Daniel Ramirez and wide receiver Joe Joe Euwins. Around forty kids showed up for physicals so numbers are expected to be up this year.
District rival Duncan also has to replace an outstanding quarterback – Trent Wilkins – and backup Houston Johnston is expected to step up into the starter’s role. Head coach Jim Holloway also has veterans for Johnston to work with – three-year starter Jacob Meiers at the receiver slot and tailback Clint Miller, who ran for 800 yards last year.
Tuttle, a state semifinalist last year in 3A, is expected to possibly go all the way this year with senior quarterback Sterling Koons and tailback Paco Moore providing lots of firepower.
Koons, son of head coach Phillip Koons, recently finished in the top ten at the US Army’s Top Gun Quarterback Challenge and is considered to be one of the best in the state in any class.
A young and green Rush Springs has a new staff after longtime coach Barry Foster and assistants David McKay and Darren Brantley defected to Marlow over the summer.
Former Western Heights defensive coordinator Chris Vandersypen takes over the program with Tim Johnson and James Price assisting. After dominating for many years, the well has started to run dry for the Redskins, who graduated 14 players key to the team’s long run.
Minco, which cracked the playoffs last year in A-4, moves over to District A-2 this year with another young team. Stephen Justus’ Bulldogs have shown remarkable improvement since Justus took over the program but they got dinged by graduation and will be in rebuild mode this year.
Junior quarterback Chandler Barr will run the offense and has what could be a very solid backfield with senior veteran Jacob Burchfield and sophomore David Adams.
Alex rounds things out and has the potential to make a run at the eight-man playoffs this year. Junior quarterback Wayne Heffington and junior tailback Randy Alexander are young but experienced and the line will be big and solid on both sides of the ball with senior Tracer Ridley, Tre Ketchum and senior Jason Phillipes, who comes in at 6-2 and 385 after a productive year in the weight room.
