BELLVILLE — The Clear Fork football team is looking for the pendulum to swing its way again.
The Colts enjoyed a promising season in 2014, but were disappointed with a 3-7 showing last fall (including a 1-6 mark in the Ohio Cardinal Conference).
“We’re hoping (the team plays better),” head coach Dave Carroll said. “You never know. It’s awfully early yet. Things right now are good. They are right on track to what they should be doing.”
Carroll said being a Division V school has led to a tough scenario for the Colts in the OCC, which is dotted with Division II and III teams.
“In football, and wrestling and basketball and track — that don’t work out. Some of the other sports where it’s not physical — based on size, strength and speed — in our sport that’s very tough,” he said. “I haven’t seen other teams yet, so I don’t know.
“I know people get tired of this; I know our kids know this: We don’t care (about wins and losses) because there is nothing we can do about it.”
“I know some teams lost kids, some have kids coming back, but until you see them on film, meet up with them it’s hard to make predictions. We don’t make any excuses, but the kids know what they are up against. It’s a tough hill to climb in this league.”
Still, Carroll’s team suffered a couple of tough breaks in 2015 that could’ve changed the season picture. First there was a three-point loss to Fredericktown in the opener, and an eight-point setback to Shelby in Week Three. Carroll believes both were winnable games.
“We had two senior starters last year. We have some new faces we pulled out from the hallways that are pretty darn good players,” he said. “(This year) we’re bigger than we were, we are faster than we were, we are stronger than we were and we’re a little more experienced.
“So yeah, the expectations go up.”
Thomas Staab, a dual-threat quarterback is one player to watch this season. Carroll likes the idea of having a confident leader behind center.
“He’s very fast,” his coach said. “He is a tremendous runner, hard to tackle. He has tremendous lateral movement he is elusive. His biggest weakness is consistency with the throwing game. That takes time.”
Carroll said because Staab is fairly new to the quarterback position (he played receiver his freshman and part of sophomore year on varsity) he could be more comfortable throwing the ball.
“We believe he is such a threat because he is so good at running. He is incredibly smart, and I don’t just mean book-smart, but also athletically-smart. He leads by example,” Carroll said. “He is the prototypical leader you would want to be leading a football team.”
Junior receiver and defensive back Matt Thran and Sloan Bowman, a junior linebacker have speed which has also caught the coach’s eye.
“We’re not huge compared to Ashland, Madison and Wooster, but we have nice-sized linemen now, Carroll said. “I mean we were playing kids who weighed 170 pounds, a big kid was 200 pounds they were playing kids who weighed 300 pounds. So obviously that helps.”
Wins and losses this season won’t determine a successful campaign — but don’t misunderstand Carroll’s will to win. He said his priority is what his players get out of each season. How they grow and what they learn is the important part.
“The number one thing I tell parents, is ‘I’ll tell you 10 years from now if this season was successful.’ When I see what these men become as college students, as employees, as husbands and fathers then I’ll tell you if this season was successful. Wins and losses are relative. If I have better players and we win, I’m a brilliant coach, and we’ll win a lot of games.
“Are they team players, are they committed? Do they love their teammates, their coaches? That’s what is important to me. Yes, we were 3-7 last year, but the majority of those kids they sold out, believed, they did it. These guys know the drill, they want to work hard, and they want to win. As far as that stuff, winning takes care of championships and going to the playoffs. Bottom line is are you doing your job? When you start looking at the scoreboard you forget to do your job.”
Carroll said he is confident in his players, particularly their will, desire and discipline as they practice through the August heat.
“We feel we have a good group of skilled players that are now juniors and seniors, but were playing varsity as freshman and sophomores and getting drilled,” he said. “They’re tough, they stuck with it. Got bigger and stronger and now they are turning into young men. We’re pretty pleased with that progress.”
