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2024 FOOTBALL SEASON PREVIEW: Cloverdale Clovers
In Tyler Lotz’s first year as Cloverdale head coach came one win. In year two, one win turned into two.
With a far more experienced group of players at his disposal in year three, the Clovers will look to blossom in what is the last season for the school in the WIC for football.
“Practices have gone really well,” Lotz said. “We’ve got around 40 kids out and, as we’re in our third year in the system, we’ve just been layering on top of the layers of stuff we had in at the start of summer.
“We had good attendance in the summer and our experienced kids have shown the new kids how we practice and do things. We’re further ahead than we’ve ever been at Cloverdale and it’s an exciting thing to have going.”
While plenty has happened away from the field in the last few months, the on-field product has taken a notable step forward over the summer with some personnel changes giving the offense a more dynamic attack plan, one in evidence in the scrimmage against Eastern Greene.
“I was very pleased with the scrimmage,” Lotz said. “At the start, our new quarterback (Landon Duncan) was a little nervous, making a few mistakes and not putting the ball where he wanted to.
“Once he settled in, we scored on six of our 10 plays in the second session and it’s really exciting to see the offense be fluid out there, looking the way it’s supposed to. Landon spreads the ball and makes the defense defend the whole field, not just certain areas, which is what we want teams to have to do all season.”
Junior quarterback Duncan takes over after Tayt Jackson and Artrevion Henderson helmed the position in 2023, throwing for 584 total yards with four scores and 19 interceptions.
Jackson, in his senior season, will move into the receiving corps fulltime next to fellow senior Drake Hoffa while classmate Jake Compton, junior Ben Campbell, sophomore Marcus Boyd and freshman Ashton Evans fill out the rest of the receiving corps.
Senior Levi Johnson will be the primary back for the Clovers after rushing for 299 yards and three scores a year ago.
“Landon has done tremendously so far and this is what we want to see,” Lotz said about the new QB1. “He’s been working hard all summer and spreads the ball well, making defenses have to defend everybody.
“Tayt was a talented quarterback but he was also our main guy so defenses loaded the box to not let him out. Moving him from the backfield to the slot allows us to put him different spots, get him in motion and teams are really going to have to defend the whole field.
“Drake is a guy on the outside with great length and who, despite only playing two years, has turned into a truly good leader,” Lotz added. “Marcus played on JV last year knowing we would need his help in the future and he hasn’t blinked while Ben is another senior slot who we can run opposite Tayt in certain sets. We plan to get the ball to all those guys and they’re all good options in the passing game.
“Levi will be huge for us in the running game. When teams loaded the box on Tayt, we didn’t have the numbers we needed and the running game wasn’t working for us. Now that we can spread things out, we should get some boxes we like to see, ones that are better for us to run at.
Up front, Cloverdale will have an experienced front line with seniors Corey Branigan, Braxtin Colon, Landon Bates and Andrew McKinney are joined by junior Jesse Carroll and sophomore TJ Hamilton.
“We have several guys who are either 200-plus pounds or aggressive kids in a good way,” Lotz said. “Corey is our anchor at center and we’ll rely on him to make the line calls and get everyone where they need to go.
“Jesse played football for the first time ever last year, playing at 165-170 pounds, and added 30 pounds in the weight room since last year while buying into being an offensive lineman. Braxtin played as a freshman and sophomore, wasn’t here last year and is back now while Drew is a big kid that is also a move in. He’s a big, country kid who is tough and we’re excited to have him.
“TJ is the smallest lineman but is so physical for us it’s hard not to put him on the line,” Lotz added. “Landon started as a sophomore but didn’t play last year because of some injuries; we talked with him about playing again and he felt comfortable with where things are, doing a great job as a senior on the line.”
Lotz said the defense was still a bit undersized and a change in scheme was put in place to help try to create opportunities to make plays.
“We’re going to a 3-4 this year and will try to use our speed to help us,” Lotz said. “We want to cause confusion with stunts and blitzes to help us get after people.
“We’re not extremely big, so we can’t just sit and hold gaps every time. We need to change things up and beat people off the ball.”
Branigan will feature on the defensive line alongside senior Anthony Horsley and sophomore Logan Hamm with other offensive linemen rotating in to spell the front three.
Jackson and Johnson will be on the flanks as linebackers with senior Carson Caulkins and junior Connor Smith returning as interior linebackers. Sophomore Jace Gardner will rotate in when needed.
Hoffa, Campbell and Compton will be in at safety while Boyd and junior Artrevion Henderson will man corner spots.
“We’ve got four linebackers ready to play with Tayt and Levi on the outside and Carson and Connor on the inside with Jace working his way in,” Lotz said. “That area has been our biggest improvement on defense as we can run a few different coverages while looking to get after it up front.
“Up front, we’re trying to limit the amount of guys we use both ways though we’ll use Corey and TJ, along with Anthony at nose and Logan as a defensive end. We’ve got Jacob, Drake and Ben at safety and Trevion and Marcus as our corners.
“Just like up front, we’re trying to not use so many guys going both ways across the field because we want to have guys who are still fresh and can help us stay in games,” Lotz added. “In a lot of games last year, while we weren’t where we wanted to be, we fought with people who were more talented than us for a quarter or a half, but once the second half came around other teams had more juice and wore us down.”
Kicking duties will be handled by Jackson with Hoffa in charge of punting.
For the first time in a decade, Cloverdale won’t open the season with South Putnam waiting on the other side, the matchup with the A No. 1 Eagles now in week nine. Cascade and Owen Valley are off the schedule in other changes to the new campaign.
Instead, the Clovers start the season with Riverton Parke, followed by a trip to Edinburgh and home games against Brown County and Southside Home School.
Three of the last five games after are on the road with trips to North Putnam, Greencastle and West Vigo around home dates with South Decatur and South Putnam.
“I’m really excited with what we’ve done with the schedule,” Lotz said. “We’re not in a position as a program right now to stack the schedule for a deep run in the state tournament. We’re trying to get better as a team, build confidence, get our numbers up and build the youth league.
“When we get to the point where we think we can go deep, we can beef up the schedule, but we’re not there yet and there’s nothing wrong with that. Riverton Parke is a respectable team, we’re 1-1 with Edinburgh since we picked them up and Southside is a one-year deal after we cut Cascade from the schedule and ahead of North Central next year. Southside reached out to us, wanting to play, and it made since to add it as it was another home game for us.
“Leaving the WIC to be independent wasn’t something we wanted to do but it worked out that way as, otherwise, we would have to add Northview, Sullivan and Owen Valley to the schedule, which would hurt our program in the long run,” Lotz added. “We’re looking into our options and will see what the future brings as we don’t want to be independent for long but also need to find what fits our program and makes sense for us.”
Like the other county schools, Cloverdale will be in a new sectional, moving to Class A Sectional No. 46 alongside Clinton Central, Clinton Prairie, Indianapolis Tindley, Irvington Prep, Sheridan and Tri-Central.
“As a coach, when you get the sectional, you’re looking at the pros and cons of it,” Lotz said. “For us as a program, we have to stay focused on the regular season and look to make it memorable.
“We’ll see what kind of team we are at postseason time. At first glimpse, outside of Sheridan, it’s an open field, so we’ll see what happen when tournament time comes.”
With confidence building following a promising summer and scrimmage, Lotz said the team felt like it was in a position to take a step forward but to do that, it had to break some of its worst habits of old if it wanted to go in the direction everyone wanted.
“We want to compete every week; that’s the biggest thing we’ve talked to the team about since day one,” Lotz said. “In so many games, the story of Cloverdale’s past is a blowout. We get down early, we get down mentally, lay off and things get ugly from there.
“We’ve told the guys we want them to compete no matter what. We have to have a next play mentality and give it our all no matter what the scoreboard says. That’s the biggest sign of success and the way to see the program grow.
“This senior class means so much to me personally and to our program as a whole,” Lotz added. “We have 14 seniors and a lot of them have played together from youth league on up. This group has been playing for me four years, from my first year as an assistant, and the commitment they’ve shown is second to none.
“I want nothing but the best for these kids and for them to go out the way they want to, to compete every night, no matter who it is, and to build up in the underclassmen a spirit that Cloverdale football hasn’t always had. We want to build a culture of support within the program, the school and the community and a lot of the hype these kids are building for this year is because football is important to these kids.”