'12 Team Preview: McClain Tigers
Lead Summary
By
Stephen Forsha-sforsha@gmail.com
The 2012 McClain Tigers are looking to have a vast improvement from an injury-plagued season one year ago, where the Tigers were held to under 100 points on offense and lost their final eight games of the regular season.
With '11 in the rearview mirror, the '12 Tigers are just looking to have overall improvement on all aspects of their game as they went 1-9 overall in '11 with no wins in South Central Ohio League play.
"In our offseason, we've tried to work on strength development, speed development. Right now, our numbers are a little bit low, so the few kids that we have, have a lot of responsibility," Closson said. "We've got kids that are working and holding down full-time jobs, running their own businesses, so the summer workouts probably weren't at the level I'd like to have seen them. The kids are coming in, and they've been working hard through two-a-days, and we feel pretty good about them right now."
Closson also spoke about his senior class, which stands at 11, and the group of returning starters, though McClain lost some players from last season due to graduation or players deciding to not play the sport.
"From returning starters from last year, there's nine of them," Closson said of how many starters are returning to the Tigers. "We lost seven kids to graduation. We've got a solid freshman class, a good size group there.
"We lost some sophomores that had played for us as freshmen that didn't come out for us this year. We were looking for a big upswing in numbers with what we believed was going to be a good size freshman group coming in and only graduating seven, but our sophomore class dropped off to only about seven kids there, so it kind of ended up being a wash, numbers-wise."
One plus for the Tigers this season could be their offensive line experience, as they return four of five starters who played in 10 games last year. The one win for MHS in '11 was a Week 2, 21-7 win at Unioto.
"We've got [DJ] Davis, Phil Thompson, Devin Trefz and Dylan Trefz. There's four guys who either started or played a lot of varsity time for us last year, so four out of the five guys are experienced offensive line guys," Closson said. "I think it shows right now that our offensive line schemes are solid. We got some guys doing some good things there. Our skill kids, even though we're not deep in those spots, they are veterans.
"They're seasoned in what we're doing. They know what we're trying to accomplish offensively and defensively."
Closson continued speaking about the offensive line in more detail as they can expand on last season.
"I think we're going to be a little more versatile with our offensive linemen being more experienced. We can throw a few more blocking schemes into the system that we're running," Closson said.
Closson mentioned some of the standout skill position players that will be looked upon for McClain this season.
"Thomas Schrader, who played a lot last year with Camron Cooper being injured, will be our quarterback. Dillon East will be at the tailback spot, and Clayton Burgess at the full back spot," Closson said. "We're going to really mess with personnel packages. You're going to see us running with a tight end and two backs in the backfield, and other times you'll see us running with five wide receivers and no backs. So we've got a wide variety of things and different ways to attack defenses and really force defenses to do what we want them to do or get them out of positions they want to be in.
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"We've got three backs in [Dillon] East, [Chris] Sellman and Zach Puckett come out and play for us this year. We think they each bring dynamics to the team that we feel we can put any one of those three and execute our offensive effectively. Then Clayton Burgess playing fullback spot for us, he's a load and running up in there hard for us in the short yard stuff. We've got Shaun Haddox, who will be tight end for us when we run tight end set."
The head coach went into detail about the quarterback position and the depth they have at that position.
"Thomas [Schrader] brings a lot because he's a natural leader. He does some tremendous things, and he's got great vision. Thomas has good size, he can see over the line, get his eyes downfield, and he's patient with routes,” Closson said, "He allows things to develop, he checks down and hits his outlet receivers when he needs to. I think that really brings a lot to what we're trying to do with him because of that versatility. He can throw the deep ball and yet he can check down and hit the backswing out of the backfield. I think he's going to be a strength of what we're doing offensively.
"We've got really good backups as well. We got Goble, we got Ryan Faulconer. That's one of the spots we have some flexibility, but if we have to move one of those kids to quarterback, that eliminates one of the positions that kid was going to play for. They're all capable of playing. They're athletes. Jordan [Goble]'s a rock-solid kid. He just plays hard, he's smart, he makes plays. If you looked at him walking down the hallways, you might not think he's a football player, but when he puts the pads on and he gets out there, he competes, and he makes things happen for us. We're hoping we can keep him healthy and put the ball in his hands in different ways and let him make plays for us."
The looming factor for McClain is their depth and the need to stay away from the injury bug, a problem that has plagued them the past few seasons.
"Our biggest issue is we've got to stay healthy this year," Closson said. "A few injuries are really, really going to hurt us with our depth, so we've got to avoid that."
Then the conversation shifted to defense, which was a problem for the Tigers last year. In the '11 season, the Tigers allowed 334 points while scoring just 94 offensively (were shutout four times), dropping their final eight games.
"Defensively, we're going to continue to run our 4-3 and run some 5-2 and 5-3 out of it. We want to move our front around and our positions around but keep responsibilities pretty simple," Closson said. "We've got a lot of guys coming back. I think our entire defensive line is returning, our linebacking corps is pretty much returning, our two corners, our safety are back too.
"We're replacing one starter, maybe two starters defensively. We think if we can stay healthy, we could be pretty solid."
But the topic of discussion, again, went back to that in order to achieve success, the Tigers must stay healthy.
"The one key is stay healthy. When you've got one of your two returning starters go down on your offensive line, your quarterback who's been a two-year starter go down in the backfield, that really hampers what you're planning on doing offensively," Closson said, looking back at the past season.
Another part of achieving success is improvement on the offensive side.
"We got to maintain our drives. We can't have silly penalties that put us into second and long, third and long situations," Closson said. "We can't have fumbles, turnovers, and with the experience we're returning, we feel we ought to eliminate those mental mistakes. We ought to be able to maintain possession of the ball."
With '11 in the rearview mirror, the '12 Tigers are just looking to have overall improvement on all aspects of their game as they went 1-9 overall in '11 with no wins in South Central Ohio League play.
"In our offseason, we've tried to work on strength development, speed development. Right now, our numbers are a little bit low, so the few kids that we have, have a lot of responsibility," Closson said. "We've got kids that are working and holding down full-time jobs, running their own businesses, so the summer workouts probably weren't at the level I'd like to have seen them. The kids are coming in, and they've been working hard through two-a-days, and we feel pretty good about them right now."
Closson also spoke about his senior class, which stands at 11, and the group of returning starters, though McClain lost some players from last season due to graduation or players deciding to not play the sport.
"From returning starters from last year, there's nine of them," Closson said of how many starters are returning to the Tigers. "We lost seven kids to graduation. We've got a solid freshman class, a good size group there.
"We lost some sophomores that had played for us as freshmen that didn't come out for us this year. We were looking for a big upswing in numbers with what we believed was going to be a good size freshman group coming in and only graduating seven, but our sophomore class dropped off to only about seven kids there, so it kind of ended up being a wash, numbers-wise."
One plus for the Tigers this season could be their offensive line experience, as they return four of five starters who played in 10 games last year. The one win for MHS in '11 was a Week 2, 21-7 win at Unioto.
"We've got [DJ] Davis, Phil Thompson, Devin Trefz and Dylan Trefz. There's four guys who either started or played a lot of varsity time for us last year, so four out of the five guys are experienced offensive line guys," Closson said. "I think it shows right now that our offensive line schemes are solid. We got some guys doing some good things there. Our skill kids, even though we're not deep in those spots, they are veterans.
"They're seasoned in what we're doing. They know what we're trying to accomplish offensively and defensively."
Closson continued speaking about the offensive line in more detail as they can expand on last season.
"I think we're going to be a little more versatile with our offensive linemen being more experienced. We can throw a few more blocking schemes into the system that we're running," Closson said.
Closson mentioned some of the standout skill position players that will be looked upon for McClain this season.
"Thomas Schrader, who played a lot last year with Camron Cooper being injured, will be our quarterback. Dillon East will be at the tailback spot, and Clayton Burgess at the full back spot," Closson said. "We're going to really mess with personnel packages. You're going to see us running with a tight end and two backs in the backfield, and other times you'll see us running with five wide receivers and no backs. So we've got a wide variety of things and different ways to attack defenses and really force defenses to do what we want them to do or get them out of positions they want to be in.
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"We've got three backs in [Dillon] East, [Chris] Sellman and Zach Puckett come out and play for us this year. We think they each bring dynamics to the team that we feel we can put any one of those three and execute our offensive effectively. Then Clayton Burgess playing fullback spot for us, he's a load and running up in there hard for us in the short yard stuff. We've got Shaun Haddox, who will be tight end for us when we run tight end set."
The head coach went into detail about the quarterback position and the depth they have at that position.
"Thomas [Schrader] brings a lot because he's a natural leader. He does some tremendous things, and he's got great vision. Thomas has good size, he can see over the line, get his eyes downfield, and he's patient with routes,” Closson said, "He allows things to develop, he checks down and hits his outlet receivers when he needs to. I think that really brings a lot to what we're trying to do with him because of that versatility. He can throw the deep ball and yet he can check down and hit the backswing out of the backfield. I think he's going to be a strength of what we're doing offensively.
"We've got really good backups as well. We got Goble, we got Ryan Faulconer. That's one of the spots we have some flexibility, but if we have to move one of those kids to quarterback, that eliminates one of the positions that kid was going to play for. They're all capable of playing. They're athletes. Jordan [Goble]'s a rock-solid kid. He just plays hard, he's smart, he makes plays. If you looked at him walking down the hallways, you might not think he's a football player, but when he puts the pads on and he gets out there, he competes, and he makes things happen for us. We're hoping we can keep him healthy and put the ball in his hands in different ways and let him make plays for us."
The looming factor for McClain is their depth and the need to stay away from the injury bug, a problem that has plagued them the past few seasons.
"Our biggest issue is we've got to stay healthy this year," Closson said. "A few injuries are really, really going to hurt us with our depth, so we've got to avoid that."
Then the conversation shifted to defense, which was a problem for the Tigers last year. In the '11 season, the Tigers allowed 334 points while scoring just 94 offensively (were shutout four times), dropping their final eight games.
"Defensively, we're going to continue to run our 4-3 and run some 5-2 and 5-3 out of it. We want to move our front around and our positions around but keep responsibilities pretty simple," Closson said. "We've got a lot of guys coming back. I think our entire defensive line is returning, our linebacking corps is pretty much returning, our two corners, our safety are back too.
"We're replacing one starter, maybe two starters defensively. We think if we can stay healthy, we could be pretty solid."
But the topic of discussion, again, went back to that in order to achieve success, the Tigers must stay healthy.
"The one key is stay healthy. When you've got one of your two returning starters go down on your offensive line, your quarterback who's been a two-year starter go down in the backfield, that really hampers what you're planning on doing offensively," Closson said, looking back at the past season.
Another part of achieving success is improvement on the offensive side.
"We got to maintain our drives. We can't have silly penalties that put us into second and long, third and long situations," Closson said. "We can't have fumbles, turnovers, and with the experience we're returning, we feel we ought to eliminate those mental mistakes. We ought to be able to maintain possession of the ball."