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Areas of concern, surprise packages give coaches plenty to ponder with 2024 football season around the corner
In just a few days, the 2024-25 athletic season will begin in earnest, though a spare week between the end of the Putnam County Fair and the start of practices leaves teams a little time to put in some final touches before formal work begins.
Football teams around the county have gotten around this summer with teams finding the time to scrimmage teams from with the sectional spheres to teams well outside the normal playing area and even the odd out-of-state competitor.
The summer scrimmage slate gives teams a wide variety of options to see different levels of competition, sometime featuring schools within the conference like Sullivan and Northview, other teams around the area like Cascade, Danville, Monrovia and Lebanon and potential sectional opponents like South Vermillion, Attica, Eastern Greene, Linton, Lafayette Central Catholic having seen Putnam County opposition throughout June and July.
Team camps and 7-on-7 competitions provide the chance to cast an even wider net, giving teams the chance to see those well outside the area like Evansville Central, Gibson Southern, Castle, Eastern Hancock, Alexandria and Shenandoah among others that might only be seen in a deep state tournament run, even including teams from out of state like Danville in Illinois.
With each team presenting a different look and different athletes, each chance to get on the field is an opportunity coaches relish, especially with questions that need answering.
The large amount of turnover year on year in the sport leads each team to spend much of the summer retooling their squads, trying to figure out what combinations work and what needs to be tinkered with once practices being in earnest.
Largely speaking, each of the four schools had different primary needs to address from the end of last year.
For Greencastle, head coach Dave Stephens said there wasn’t a specific area that needed a lot of attention but more a desire to see the defensive side of the ball make improvements over last year after the offense had done so a year ago.
“We were questioning our defense as an entire group going in to summer,” Stephens said. “We have found out that our defensive group this year is really good.”
Defense was also an area of concern for South Putnam, which graduated several key personnel, but the Eagles also went into the summer looking for a long-term answer at running back.
“The defensive backs and running backs have the most questions coming into season with big losses in Caden (Switzer) and Logan (Sillery) at defensive back and Kolby (Harcourt) at running back,” South Putnam head coach Chuck Sorrell said. “We have found three running backs in Ty Benton, Kason Ames, and Brier Cook that I feel can play varsity; they are still battling for No. 1 and No. 2 spots.
“Our defensive backs have grown up a year, but Brody Burge and Stiles Stauch are trying to win that third position.”
With numbers up from last year, North Putnam head coach Scott Moore said there was a chance that the team would be able to utilize players more on one side of the ball rather than having two-way players at numerous positions, giving the team some flexibility in the overlapped positions.
“We knew we had some good pieces coming back on the offensive line but had a couple holes to fill,” Moore said. “We feel very good about where we are and the changes we have made up front.
“We are also excited about some new additions in our secondary defensively. We will be able to specialize players only playing one side of the ball at linebacker, defensive line and some receiver positions.”
Using two quarterbacks last season, Cloverdale head coach Tyler Lotz went in with an open mind about the position and came up with a new answer altogether that frees up talent to be utilized elsewhere.
“Quarterback was one of our biggest questions and we found out Landon Duncan is more than talented enough to handle the position at a high level,” Lotz said. “We also have a solid backup with Tre Henderson that is going to continue to grow at that position.”
While strengthening weak areas is a main concern for teams, coaches are also on the lookout for anyone making a jump during the offseason to force their way into the varsity conversation.
For some, the surprises won’t be for them but for opponents down the road.
“There aren’t any surprises,” Stephens said. “We have a group of players that work really hard and will surprise our fans and our opponents but we see it every day.”
Other coaches noted that depth was better in some areas than others while eyeing up young players looking for their chance to make an impact.
“The surprises are we have a lot of younger guys that want to and can play varsity football,” Sorrell said. “It’ll be interesting to see who becomes a starter in some of the different positions.”
“One of the biggest surprises for us is the depth in certain positions,” Lotz added. “We have enough offensive and defensive lineman to be three-to-four deep across the board.
“Where we now lack numbers in skill positions, which is usually complete opposite at Cloverdale.”
“We are very excited with how far along we are as the summer is coming to the end,” Moore said. “Year three in the system has shown that we have a good understanding of our scheme and the new additions have picked up on things fast while it has been good to have upperclassmen that have been around help them out along the way.
“Our buy-in as a team this summer was amazing as we had the highest percentage of attendance at summer workouts, practices, camps and scrimmages in the three seasons I have been here. That buy-in has got us to a good point where we fell we can now really focus on little things and small improvements instead of install and understanding big concepts.”