'12 Team Preview: Chillicothe Cavaliers
Lead Summary
By
Stephen Forsha-sforsha@gmail.com
Veteran and state champion head football coach Ron Hinton is entering his third season on the brink of building a program as he sees fit, as the Cavaliers played many underclassmen last season, and with this being their final year in the Southern Ohio Athletic League, the Cavaliers want to continue to keep gaining experience needed for future seasons.
The Cavaliers are coming off a 3-7 record last season as they dropped their first five games until defeating the Hillsboro Indians 54-11 at HHS. Including that win, the Cavaliers went 3-2 in their final five games, but Hinton and his players want to see early season results to go with their second-half surge as CHS returns four senior letterman and five total seniors, but added with other classes, the Cavaliers return 17 total letterman.
"We've made big strides this offseason, mainly because the sophomores from last season have grown up (10 started last year), and they started last year maybe not because they were the best we had, but they were all we had with a small senior class last year," Hinton said. "The offseason has gone pretty well for one reason: we emphasized injury prevention.
"We wanted to change the work ethic within the program, our attitudes and we want to be more accountable with what we we're doing."
Hinton then spoke about having to play all the sophomores last year.
"If you look at it for the future, we'll have almost an entire starting lineup back for a third year next year," he said. "Our quarterback will have his second year starting this year, so will our running back. Both of our tackles will be second year players, one guard is a second year player and our center was a part-time player last year.
"We do have to replace our right guard on the offensive line, and we have two starting wide receivers who return as seniors this year."
The starting quarterback this season is junior Ryan Mathis (6-1, 169), as Hinton has said he's gotten a lot bigger, stronger and more physical.
"His maturity on the fact he has not only grown up a lot, but that year's experience is helpful," Hinton said. "He's an excellent runner, but he always gets the extra two or three yards because he never goes backwards, he always goes forward, and that is great to have in a quarterback.
"We call him Timex a lot because they had an ad a while ago saying "it takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin,' and that describes Ryan. He took some poundings last year, but he never lost his confidence, never lost sight of what we're trying to do, and he just kept getting back up and getting back in the huddle and kept making plays for us."
Another player who stands out on offense is junior Julius Lee (6-0, 186) who missed games last season to injury, and senior Tim Beard (6-0, 179), who started 10 games in '11. Running back is a spot where Hinton said the Cavaliers are thin.
"I'm really happy with Julius because he worked really hard in the weight room, and he's improved his strength, physical size and his toughness," Hinton said. "The nice thing about Julius and Ryan (Mathis) is they are both near 4.0 students, and that always helps."[[In-content Ad]]
Other returning lettermen are: junior Trevon Harris (WR/DB), senior Luke Barnes (RB), junior Isaiah Johnson (WR/DB), junior George Beard (WR/DB), junior Michael Beard (WR/DB), junior Jacob Weber (PK), senior Adam Bixler (WR/DB), junior Ryan Milliken (OL/OLB), junior Chris Parsons (OL/OLB), junior Caylib Holt (OL/OLB), senior Jack Stetzer (OL/DL), junior Tyler Kelley (OL/LB), junior Josh Leonard (OL/DL) and junior Tyler Howard (OL/DL).
"The experience the team gained last year was just huge. Last year they were swimming, just trying to survive, but this year they can go in a bit more relaxed, and maybe they can be more aggressive," Hinton said. "Doing that, they can hopefully make better, consistent plays. You win and lose on the line of scrimmage. You don't have to be the best, but you have to be the toughest and keep playing hard."
The line of scrimmage is key to the success of Chillicothe as they like one thing more than anything else … running the football. Hinton said his goal is to run 60 plays per game, with approximately 48 of those plays being runs.
"I'm an old school, throwback type of guy, a Woody Hayes disciple … for me, a long run is five yards. Multiply that by ten … I'm used to drives 12-15 plays, taking eight or nine minutes off the clock," Hinton said. "We control field possession and time on the clock. We would like to do all those things. We're a slow, in your face, here we come and there is only one way to the goal line (north-to-south) offense.
"To run that, you have to be very disciplined and very confident that you are going to make those plays. We just want to average three-and-a-half yards per play. If you do that, the chains will move."
Defensively for the Cavaliers, Hinton wants his team to improve as he said his team gave up the big plays too much and teams drove the football on them too much, but he and defensive coordinator/co-head coach Jeff Arndt (who has been coaching with Hinton for 32 years) look to fix that this season.
"Our first commitment this offseason was to our defense," Hinton said. "We have to play lights out defense, and that will help our offense."
Some standouts on defense are Holt, Barnes, Lee and Howard.
"Our defense is young and green, but we know we are going to be better just for the fact the kind of program kids we have coming and are starting to play," Hinton said. "We'll still be starting two sophomores on defense this year, but that's good and bad, but this group will mostly be intact for next season as well.
"We just want to be a simple team, be fundamentally sound offensively and play great on defense and special teams. We need to play physical football but have fun, too."
The Cavaliers are coming off a 3-7 record last season as they dropped their first five games until defeating the Hillsboro Indians 54-11 at HHS. Including that win, the Cavaliers went 3-2 in their final five games, but Hinton and his players want to see early season results to go with their second-half surge as CHS returns four senior letterman and five total seniors, but added with other classes, the Cavaliers return 17 total letterman.
"We've made big strides this offseason, mainly because the sophomores from last season have grown up (10 started last year), and they started last year maybe not because they were the best we had, but they were all we had with a small senior class last year," Hinton said. "The offseason has gone pretty well for one reason: we emphasized injury prevention.
"We wanted to change the work ethic within the program, our attitudes and we want to be more accountable with what we we're doing."
Hinton then spoke about having to play all the sophomores last year.
"If you look at it for the future, we'll have almost an entire starting lineup back for a third year next year," he said. "Our quarterback will have his second year starting this year, so will our running back. Both of our tackles will be second year players, one guard is a second year player and our center was a part-time player last year.
"We do have to replace our right guard on the offensive line, and we have two starting wide receivers who return as seniors this year."
The starting quarterback this season is junior Ryan Mathis (6-1, 169), as Hinton has said he's gotten a lot bigger, stronger and more physical.
"His maturity on the fact he has not only grown up a lot, but that year's experience is helpful," Hinton said. "He's an excellent runner, but he always gets the extra two or three yards because he never goes backwards, he always goes forward, and that is great to have in a quarterback.
"We call him Timex a lot because they had an ad a while ago saying "it takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin,' and that describes Ryan. He took some poundings last year, but he never lost his confidence, never lost sight of what we're trying to do, and he just kept getting back up and getting back in the huddle and kept making plays for us."
Another player who stands out on offense is junior Julius Lee (6-0, 186) who missed games last season to injury, and senior Tim Beard (6-0, 179), who started 10 games in '11. Running back is a spot where Hinton said the Cavaliers are thin.
"I'm really happy with Julius because he worked really hard in the weight room, and he's improved his strength, physical size and his toughness," Hinton said. "The nice thing about Julius and Ryan (Mathis) is they are both near 4.0 students, and that always helps."[[In-content Ad]]
Other returning lettermen are: junior Trevon Harris (WR/DB), senior Luke Barnes (RB), junior Isaiah Johnson (WR/DB), junior George Beard (WR/DB), junior Michael Beard (WR/DB), junior Jacob Weber (PK), senior Adam Bixler (WR/DB), junior Ryan Milliken (OL/OLB), junior Chris Parsons (OL/OLB), junior Caylib Holt (OL/OLB), senior Jack Stetzer (OL/DL), junior Tyler Kelley (OL/LB), junior Josh Leonard (OL/DL) and junior Tyler Howard (OL/DL).
"The experience the team gained last year was just huge. Last year they were swimming, just trying to survive, but this year they can go in a bit more relaxed, and maybe they can be more aggressive," Hinton said. "Doing that, they can hopefully make better, consistent plays. You win and lose on the line of scrimmage. You don't have to be the best, but you have to be the toughest and keep playing hard."
The line of scrimmage is key to the success of Chillicothe as they like one thing more than anything else … running the football. Hinton said his goal is to run 60 plays per game, with approximately 48 of those plays being runs.
"I'm an old school, throwback type of guy, a Woody Hayes disciple … for me, a long run is five yards. Multiply that by ten … I'm used to drives 12-15 plays, taking eight or nine minutes off the clock," Hinton said. "We control field possession and time on the clock. We would like to do all those things. We're a slow, in your face, here we come and there is only one way to the goal line (north-to-south) offense.
"To run that, you have to be very disciplined and very confident that you are going to make those plays. We just want to average three-and-a-half yards per play. If you do that, the chains will move."
Defensively for the Cavaliers, Hinton wants his team to improve as he said his team gave up the big plays too much and teams drove the football on them too much, but he and defensive coordinator/co-head coach Jeff Arndt (who has been coaching with Hinton for 32 years) look to fix that this season.
"Our first commitment this offseason was to our defense," Hinton said. "We have to play lights out defense, and that will help our offense."
Some standouts on defense are Holt, Barnes, Lee and Howard.
"Our defense is young and green, but we know we are going to be better just for the fact the kind of program kids we have coming and are starting to play," Hinton said. "We'll still be starting two sophomores on defense this year, but that's good and bad, but this group will mostly be intact for next season as well.
"We just want to be a simple team, be fundamentally sound offensively and play great on defense and special teams. We need to play physical football but have fun, too."