By Bryan Bloodworth
A pair of highly successful high school football programs is the focus of today’s Countdown to Kickoff as we shift our focus to Heart of Illinois Conference powerhouses Tri-Valley and LeRoy.
PODCAST: Listen to report here.
Tri-Valley will be shooting for its ninth straight playoff berth and an opportunity to defend its Class 2A state championship. Head coach Josh Roop, who has a 79-26 career record, knows the route the Vikings have to travel.
“Our goal is to always win a conference championship,” said Roop. “I feel like if you can win a conference championship you have an opportunity to go deep and do well in the playoffs. We’re going to take it game-by-game and focus on winning the conference championship right now, then when the post-season comes around it’s a new season.”
Roop also said going deep in the playoffs give teams an overlooked advantage in building a program.
“The thing about going deep in the playoffs is all those kids get that many more practices,” he added. “That’s so underrated. What people don’t understand is that teams that go deep in the playoffs year-after-year is that get the extra practices and that’s underrated.
“The kids are getting 14 weeks of practices instead of nine. Two of the last three years we’ve gotten 10 extra weeks of practice in. That’s helped us quite a bit in helping us develop our young players.”
The Vikings return five starters on defense and four on offense from last year’s 14-0 squad. That group is led by senior all-conference performers Jared Nelson at linebacker and Cam Elam as a defensive lineman.
The other returning defensive starters are senior outside linebackers Hunter Merritt and Tom Dolan along with senior cornerback Jake Steiner.
“We’re really excited about our defense and what we bring back on our defense,” said Roop. “I look for that to carry us early as we continue to get our feet under us offensively.”
The four offensive returning starters are Jake Steiner at running back, Nelson at fullback, Merritt at tight end and Elam at tackle. Players, who saw considerable action last year and are expected to move into starting roles include Jake Bair at tackle, Cody Steiner at center and Hunter Gawlick at guard.
Tri-Valley’s junior varsity team also went undefeated last year, so Roop is expecting those players to continue the Vikings’ winning ways.
“We’re excited about our junior class that is going to step in and fill some of the voids,” Roop continued. “It’s a little bit of rebuilding as far as experience, but we’re hoping for tradition to carry us through.
“We have good numbers and good depth this year, so I think our juniors and sophomores are going to be able to step in and do some things on special teams and give our kids some breaks because last year we didn’t have too many kids come off the field. That’s going to be exciting this year because we have a little bit of depth.
Roop said Aaron Kussman will direct the offense with the graduation of his son Peyton, an all-state quarterback, but the offense won’t change.
“We’re going to continue to do what we do,” said the coach. “We’ve got a pretty good system and the last few years it’s carried us far. I’m excited about our overall team speed and I think we’ll continue to build off that.”
The Vikings open the season Aug. 26 in Bloomington against Central Catholic.
Meanwhile, LeRoy’s storied program made it to the Class 1A state semifinals last year and 14th-year head coach B.J. Zeleznik, like Roop, said the extra weeks of practice will help his team this year.
“Especially this year when we’re really senior and sophomore dominated,” he said. “To get four extra weeks of practice last year in the postseason and to get our senior class that much more game experience has paid off to start this year because we’re a very different group.”
Zeleznik has four three-year starters returning to build around in senior defensive ends Alex Lemont and Brandon Bagnell, along with safety Dalton Noe and fullback Corbin Litherland.
Zeleznik believes defense will be a strength for the Panthers, who were 9-4 last year.
“We’re going to lean heavily on our two defensive ends. They’re outstanding football players and there’s a reason they’ve been starting for three years. A lot of what we run defensively is going to go through them.
“Obviously having Litherland back in the middle is huge. Middle linebackers are hard to come by, so whenever you have an experienced linebacker he’s a difference-maker in terms of finding the football.”
Zeleznik, who has a 94-45 career record, said while the offensive schemes won’t change, fans will see a different type of offense.
“Our approach is going to be a little bit different,” he said. “Our approach is going to be very similar to what we did in the playoffs last year, which was ball security and control the clock.
“With the graduation of Bryce Dooley and Ethan Bryant they were very athletic, fast, skilled players, so we could stretch the field vertically and we had opportunities to break big plays.
“We don’t have that kind of open field athleticism this year. What we do have in the backfield this year is very good hard-nosed runners, so we’re going to have to control the ball, limit turnovers and keep the ball out of our opponent’s hand.”
Senior Brett Egan returns for another year at quarterback, according to Zeleznik.
“He can throw the ball down field, so we’re still going to take chances down field this year,” said Zeleznik. “I just don’t know how often we’re going to do that, but we do need to utilize Brett’s arm.”
Zeleznik also said this year’s team will be more power-oriented with the return of running backs Noe and Litherland.
“I think that has to be our attitude until we can figure out – and we went through the same thing last year we went through the same process – what this team can do to create points in hurry and we figured out a few wrinkles,” said Zeleznik. “This year we’ll come up with a few wrinkles eventually, but we’re going to start the year off making sure we can run the ball well.”
Zeleznik said improvement will be the key to the Panthers success.
“I think anything can happen if you get better every week,” he said. “I think we’ll be competitive and I know we’ll get better every week. That’s LeRoy football. That’s our expectation and our players’ expectation and they understand that. “If we’re playing good football at the end of the year, anything can happen.”
LeRoy opens the season at home against Ridgeview Aug. 26.
Countdown to Kickoff turns its attention to Intercity teams Monday and looks in on Central Catholic at 6:40 a.m. on the Scott Laughlin show and at 5:40 p.m. on the Dan Swaney show.
Bryan Bloodworth can be reached at [email protected]
