 everybody and welcome to the 2008 High School Football Coaches Show. My name is Mike Martin. Joining me is the coach Chris Wright. Chris, we got a dynamite show this year and a little bit of a change from last year. We'll be covering North and South and Lutheran Coler, but we do have a change over at Lutheran Coler. Yes, we have a brand new coach over there, Matt Savatas taking over. We'll find out he previously was at Coler and then is now starting his first year with the co-op program. It's some great experience and you'll share that with him, with Chris when we get into that portion of the show. Now during the breaks we'll be showing the home schedule for North, South and Lutheran Coler and then near the end of our show we'll be showing the broadcast schedule for us this year. In the show's final segment we're going to tell about last year who won the competition and we'll give our predictions of course for this year. Chris, you did pretty good last year. We got the same this year. When we come back I'll be discussing South football with coach Chris Hines. So stay tuned, we'll be right back. Joining me is head football coach at Sheboygan South, Chris Hines. Chris, thanks a lot for coming in. I know it's a real busy time of year for you. Started practice a couple days ago. Last year your team went four and five on the season and you played in a really tough conference and we were talking before we went on, you wound up hitting all the high teams, a tri-championship and you wanted to play in all three of them. What will it take this year to get your team a little higher in the conference standings? Well I think when you're playing on some bay ports and the piers and Green Bay Notre-Dames you don't have a big margin for error. So obviously it starts with we have to limit our mistakes you know if we're going to make mistakes then we're giving those guys extra opportunities and they don't need to help so it's up to us and mentally being prepared and limiting our mistakes as much as possible. Another big focus for us this year is special teams. As I watched a film last year of our games we got beat pretty bad in special teams and that responsibility falls on myself. We probably didn't focus enough in practice on it last year. So this year we're going to put a bigger focus on special teams and hopefully win the field position game where we got beat pretty bad last year. One of the things you mentioned earlier before we came on the air again was winning games when you're playing teams that you think you should beat you know that becomes important. Yeah and obviously I mean if we think talent wise we match up pretty well with teams in our league then we have to win those games. You know we can't let any games slide. We have to play to our full potential every week. You know if we want to get over the top like you're saying if we want to get to five and four and have a winning record in the playoffs again as we did a couple years ago we got to take care of those things. Your team took a bit of a hit from last year losing Ray Smith. I mean he was one of the best backs in the conference and there's a real force when he's on the field. How do you make up for his loss? I think number one you're right Ray was a great player for us for three years. I think the best back in the conference was one of the best in the state. He was a focus of our offense. Obviously we won't have him there. We have three kids we think that are battling for the tail back position. I would anticipate they all play unless somebody really progresses at a huge rate in the next two weeks. But I think we can use it as an advantage. I think we're going to be harder to defend this year. Last year teams could focus on Ray and they were going to be right because we were going to try to get him the ball. I think this year we're going to utilize more of our offense. We've got two we think two and two great receivers back. We like our tight ends a lot. We like our full back a lot. I think we're going to be more diversified offensively which is going to make us harder to defend. One of the things that I think South got a reputation for is strengthening the offensive line. You look back over the years they've really had some very fine offensive linemen. Jones is one of the guys that comes to mind right away and I think the Niles brothers. How's the offensive line look this year and do you have some anchors that you can depend on? Absolutely. I think it's a strength of our team. If you look at it as a whole it's our offensive line. We return four starters and our tight end from the offensive line. I'll give you a couple names. The first one James Boutel with second team all conference last year. He's back at Tackle Forces this year. Aaron White's been a three year, will be a three year varsity player at Guard. I mean we love him and his leadership and his work ethic. Brian Urbanick is back at center. Corey Wunch is back at Guard. I mean so we are very excited about our offensive line and anticipate great things out of those guys this year. Now you lost a pretty good quarterback last year in John Kabai but you do have your receivers back. How does that portion of your offense look? Obviously the quarterback is very important. Yeah I mean we're bringing eight back on offense but we're missing three key positions. I mean we lost at Tackle. We lost a quarterback and our tailback. It's vital but what I do like this year is we have three kids competing for that quarterback job. They're very well coached. So I'm confident whoever comes out of that competition is going to be a very good quarterback for us this year. And it is nice that we've experienced lying around him. We'll have an experienced receivers around him and experienced fullback and that'll make the transition easier. Let's talk about, you talked about the quarterbacks being well coached. You do have a new face on the coaching staff. Chris Corf due to marriage. I wouldn't say that but who is this new face and it's going to be someone obviously that people are familiar with at no high school football in the area. Well we're extremely excited and fortunate to have Dan Yiddish coaching with us this year at Cheboygan South and he'll be coaching quarterbacks for us. You know that's why I feel very confident about our quarterback position. I know that we'll be ready every week. He'll also, you know, he's also almost like an assistant coach or head coach. I mean, you know, he has so much experience. He's somebody that I can, you know, question. Will he be calling the offense then? No, he won't. Jim Renzeman's going to be our offensive coordinator who's been with at Cheboygan South. I think about 15 years roughly. I might be a little off there but longer than I have and I have the utmost confidence that he'll do a great job. He's extremely organized. He knows our offense extremely well. Is Dan going to play a role in assisting him? Absolutely. You know, is Dan going to play a big role in our offense? Yeah he is but there should be no doubt about who's calling the plays and Jim Renzeman will be calling the plays. Now your first love is defense and over the course of your career itself you've called the defense. Does that remain the same again this year? Yep. I'll be calling the defense this year and honestly I think I've got to do a better job than I had the last couple of years. But let's put it this way, when you look back three or four years ago when you were calling defense it was a lot different than over the last couple because of the talent. Absolutely. We've had some very good defensive players. I need to make it a focus again and I think having Coach Renzeman with his experience and Coach Edis with his experience and Coach Goodman with their experience all on the offensive side of the ball, it's going to allow me to focus more on defense. You won't have to split your time. And not that I was doing it a lot last year because Coach Korf did a great job and we hope he'll be back with us in the future. But I need to prioritize and other than being the head coach and administrative things my main focus on the field is defense and we've got to get better defensively if we're going to get to the playoffs again. Last question Chris. How do you see the conference shaking out now just so our fans know our first game is going to be the north south game but again this year like last it's a non-conference but how do you see the rest of the conference schedule playing out? Well I think anytime you're in a conference with Ashwabana and Bayport and to peer just with their tradition and the number of kids they're going to have out and the way their communities view athletics they're always going to be in the hunt. I think from a traditional Fox River Valley team that I think is going to be very strong as Preble this year and then when they come their JV team has been extremely successful their freshman I mean at every level they've been successful and they're a very good team last year. So I really look to Preble and Ashwabana and Bayport you know the usual suspects Green Bay Notre Dame's lost quite a bit but when you have tradition and kids expect to win that goes a long way. Chris thanks a lot for stopping in I really appreciate it. When we come back Chris Wright my partner will be talking to Steve Brickson from Sheboygan North. Welcome back everybody I'm with Coach Brickson from Sheboygan North Steve you've been in Sheboygan for quite a few years now you know had the highlights and the lowlights how's it been going here for the last few years? Well you know we had a bad year last year you know we want to make up for that and sort of put that behind us and you have to do that when you have a year like that so we're excited about this year we've got a lot of young guys coming up and hopefully play some of those guys and get them on the varsity and we're excited because we've got a great group and just great philosophy, great attitude and the kids are buying into it and hopefully we'll do what we did a couple years ago and make it into the playoffs. Well hopefully you know and most people know I'm a big fan of you I see you in the fitness center I know you're in the halls I know you're talking to my baseball players I know you're trying to get kids out to play and that's kind of part of your job but I know you're trying to do the right things. Well we do we try to you know and I teach in there so I you know have access or to see the kids often and you know it's not like we go out and search for them you know we want them to come to us and play but you know we put the word out we might put a bug in somebody's ear and maybe have some friends talk to others and you know the program has grown and it's leveled off so we're right about where we want to be right now and all three levels freshman JV and varsity are doing pretty well I mean we had really pretty good seasons with our freshman and JV team and they're now coming up and going to feed into the mix so overall I just like I said the climate this year has been really really super we went in the weight room all summer long we had good turnout and did our plios and like I said we just had good turnout and so we're pretty excited this year. Yeah you mentioned before a little bit about numbers you said you had over 40 freshmen out and the last few years you've got your program's gotten close to 90 to 100 kids. Yeah yeah we're over 100 last year we had about 130 close to 120 this year you know we're proud of that you know of course we want to get out there and win and we emphasize winning but you know there are other things that are important to us as well as teachers and coaches that are a little more important than winning you know and that's helping these young men develop into good people and you know they're already good people but we're just trying to you know help them get you know make good choices and things like that and you know like I say we got a lot of leaders this year senior group but juniors last year sort of waiting in the wings you know they're out this year and they're outstanding you know I have this is probably the best senior leadership group that I've had sort of reminds me of a couple years ago when I had you know the playoff team because they just led and they treated everybody very well and it's not you know sophomore versus freshman or senior versus this sure there's competition going on but there's a lot of support with everybody and it makes a good atmosphere for our program. That's briefly talked about last year playing a tough league tough league and your schedule doesn't help either. No but we first found out we were going to get into the Fox River Classic we we saw the teams that you know not like the you know the Fox River Valley with our Green Bay teams they weren't up to par they certainly are and now we've got the other teams from the Bay conference in there you know we first saw that sort of looked at that and said wow that's that's a pretty tough conference but you know we're going to do what we say here and try to make it to the playoffs and get deeper into the playoffs each year those are the kind of teams we want to play and those are the kind of teams we're going to be playing so if we can compete and do well in our conference then you know I think if we can get into the playoffs and maybe we'll have a chance at taking a step further than we did a couple years ago and I think this year you're playing the opposite schedule from last year but then it sounds like divisions hopefully next year. Yeah we talked about that conference or our coaches meeting and we are hopefully like the other sports are in the both of the conferences and we're going to do that and hopefully we'll have which I do believe is going to work where we're actually going to have a north south game that's not a non-conference game and that's been sort of interesting the last two years where we play the first game of the year which we're not too fond of but we've got to play him sometime you know we wish the school was going on and we have a little bit bigger of a crowd but we get pretty decent size crowds anyway for that game but like I said we're pretty pumped up about what was going on this year we've had a great first three days and I had some contact days right at the end of July that I used and we had a good turnout for that as well and this is probably the first time going into my fourth year now that we've been able to sort of sit back as coaches and watch our guys develop as players and really understand the offense and defense more than I've ever seen it happen in the past three and a half years or so. I think I definitely strengthen I've mentioned this you know around town a little bit you have a lot of skilled players and you got a lot of kids that can play many players that can play those positions I mean at north I know there's a lot of good athletes and it seems they all play the you know same positions which is probably a big thing and you're really deep there we're always we always seem to be real deep at the skill positions you know with our half backs our full backs our D backs we have a quarterback competition this year which is very a number of kids that can play there we've got we've got several that are trying out for it and we're narrowing it down right now I haven't chosen a starter yet but I don't want to go into the south game having to do what I did last year where I wasn't really sure what I was going to do and I played both of them in the south game and I'd like to go with one starter and stick with them all year and hopefully we can do that but if they don't make it you know they'll be on the field somewhere because they're just that gifted yeah we do have a lot of talent there's no doubt about it you know north has never been blessed with big guys or big size linemen we are a little bit bigger this year on the line and probably I'd like to say one of the most solid lines I think we've got but we don't have much depth you know when those big guys if they were to go down we don't have you know the size that would come in and fill that in but they're there and we might be doing some tandem things in the backfield this year yeah I know you mentioned the horse a little bit I know talking to Taylor Coulter he said guys are trying to do the right things you do have some big boys up there that could help that and I know Taylor's one of your leaders there yeah Taylor's outstanding Taylor and AJ and I you know I wish I could mention everybody but all the captains have really done a nice job of just really buying into what we sold even the first year that I got here and that's the thing that I'm real proud of that we haven't changed one bit the main thing is when we came in here we we told everybody we were going to make this a positive experience and make it a fun time for kids and grow the program and we've done all those things unfortunately we haven't been on the wind column as much as we'd like to be but I hope that now that we've got the wins in the younger levels freshman and JV as far as last year you know now we've got some of those kids up at varsity and hopefully we can turn that into some wins yeah that's true one final thing I want to mention to you I know you're very heavily involved with the youth football league as well and I think talking to both you and Chris great strides with that program and helping you guys out as well right we're real pleased with the way that our relationship is with with the youth football program they have over 300 kids in the program this year that's I think the most they've ever had and I think that is one of the reasons why we've done so well in our contact days in the summer this year and then even the beginning of last three days is because these kids have learned this now in sixth or seventh and eighth grade and they're coming up into the into north having known the north offense and likewise with the south so I'm sure Chris is just as pleased seeing that those young people are coming up and they're you know we've got to do that in order to compete with these other teams we can't bring them as freshman and expect them to just learn a brand new offense these young men have to learn how to do that at the seventh or sixth grade level and they've done that and it's showing well good luck this year I best of luck we'll see you in the south game and things like that when I return we'll be with a color Lutheran coach Matt Savada Matt welcome to the coaching ranks here in town why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself currently I'm a teacher at Kohler I'm going to my sixth year as a teacher there and it's a great place to be love being in the area I live in Ferdonia so I commute up to this area and it's a I always like to say it's a good wind up and wind down for the day but I do enjoy it up here as far as football goes I have spent the last three seasons at Ozaki High School as a defensive coordinator prior to that I was at Kohler for two years one as a head coach before they ended the program I've also made coaching stops at Arrowhead High School that was a good experience made it to division one state finals game there that's when Tyler Naven was the quarterback and Nick Hayden was there two former Wisconsin players put that on your resume by the way and one year at Concordia University as an assistant and four years of football at Concordia and you're from the state of Michigan and you played ball at Concordia yes that was a great experience four years of football there one coaching as an offensive lineman learned a lot about football and you think you know something about football in high school until you go to college level and then they start throwing you around but good experience and it's made me looking back now a better coach for having that well it sounds like you've packed a lot of things in the few you know last couple years with that Kohler and Lutheran has struggled the last few years what are you going to do to change that yeah you know and and taking this job and I knew that they have struggled and I look at that as a challenge and currently I am changing the offense change the defense I'm bringing a new perspective to the program and the staff there and my areas of coaching expertise I brought there you know I think that what they have done in the past is run a spread offense and coaching against them past few years it's been fairly easy to game plan against it there's lots of differences inside the 35 yard line and I felt as if I took this job that I feel that we can we can change that simply by changing the offense working the kids coaching them the level that they need to be that's right now where I'm at defensively we're running a 4-4 defense same that they've run before but I'm bringing my system in and we want to attack teams with blitzes and stunts and gap protection and you know I think we have the ability to do that players been very receptive to this and positive I know it's only been a few days and things like that but pretty positive responses to all this yeah you know we are running an option offense so it's going to be run based a little different for the kids there and I feel that they're really really taking on to it in three days I've got two run plays two pass plays in and I'm taking it slow I'm a firm believer in and let's get good at some little things and then show it in different ways and execution and that's what we're really focusing on right now as a team is execution and just learning the basics you know I took it as let's start over from where you were let's forget the pass let's move on to the future we're starting over and you know kids like a fresh start they're excited they're the intensity level in practice has been great and it's been nice because we've had numbers too so that's great I know it's a new thing for you but this co-op program between Cole and Lutheran and probably to you they're just players with numbers they probably doesn't matter what school but been pretty good working relationship with Cole or Lutheran situation yeah absolutely both administrations have been great in this transition in fact Al Holzheimer the former head coach he's also the principal over there he I kept him on staff I thought it was important to keep a staff member at each school this year we have 13 Kohler kids going over which is the most in the co-ops history of Kohler kids going over I think I'll be able to help recruit kids in the school system to come out and play and with the younger kids start with the youth football and it's been great athletic directors have been wonderful in the transition and they're excited I'm excited the parents have been good I can't wait to meet more of them but it's been great transition I'm glad I took the job and I think the administration is too mentioning off the area there's been a lot of things going on over at Kohler with doing the field and positive things there as well so obviously the school is behind you as well absolutely the school and the community in general you know I know a couple years ago when Kohler ended football it was bad there the community didn't like that and the support from them has been great and now that with the new field possibilities coming along we just want to revamp the facility make it top of the line and right there with the rest of the county and make it a place where kids want to come play football and ultimately that would be a great goal for our program let's talk a little bit about your team here strengths of your team I know it's a little bit early but some things you've seen early on that's really shine for you yeah obviously I said the numbers we had 42 kids come out and grab equipment and that's most in the past two years I think we have good senior leadership we don't have many seniors but their leaders and their experience I got a good quarterback in Kurt Dukow and he's got experience and that's what I need right now at that spot and to be a leader I got a great full back Ryan Johansson probably the biggest in the conference about 250 pounds and he's fast so I told him my goals let's get three yards of carry so he's up for the challenge and we're intense right now in practice and I like the positive attitudes and that's definitely a strength of us right now and we can only get better from there with that expectations on the season at all or would you like to make the playoffs or start moving up the ladder a little bit yeah I mean hey what coach wouldn't want to make playoffs right is that a possibility with us this year I don't know time will tell I think absolutely we can get wins you know the conference is tough there's good coaches in our conference they're going to be prepared week after week and I feel that we can be prepared week after week too and it's just going to matter of whether kids show up to play and if they take to the offense and defense and want to win I think that's a good comment you made about your conference sometimes people around the area all you follow north or south but you know if you watch the CLC over the last few years a lot of those teams have made it couple pass in the rounds of the playoffs and you do play in a tough league yeah absolutely you know you'll get Cedar Grove, Random Lake, Howard's Grove those top tier teams in our conference we love to beat them it takes a lot and we know that going into those games and you got to play and the other games are no gimmies we have to prepare each week just the same as the next week but our focus too is right now take week by week game by game not once am I going to mention any game down the road right now our first game is late country Lutheran that's our focus when we're done with that game we're moving on the next week and that's how I want our kids to think too well thanks so much for coming in it was a pleasure to meet you good luck on the season when we return Marty and I will have our closing thoughts well Chris was a great show again this year and we want to thank the coaches for giving of their time to come in and make this possible Chris as you look at our schedule for this year what do you see as the top games for our viewers to watch well right off the bat Marty in August we have the north south game the 29th it's hard to believe that the summer's gone come and gone and now we have that game up here and two bummers on that one though I got to bring this up and that one is it's a non-conference game again this year and talk about the impact it has having that game before school starts yeah not all the you know kids and parents and everybody's back and you know school's not in so I always think that's a little bit tough and sometimes you don't get the fan base you do but the loyal locals will be out there at that game supporting that and we have two Lutheran colder games on the schedule and of course we're going to end up with the again Lakeland College we always like going out there and they treat us very well but I'm looking forward to seeing Pulaski play north this year they gave him a pretty good licking last year they have a nice program I'm going to skip a couple teams that we're going to have nice but hopefully next year when the conference changes over the schedule will get better for us as well one of the things we talked about this before going on the air is the fact that again both high schools when they're home they're both home and when they're both away they're both away and there's a lot of people in town here who like to go and see both north and south games on a Friday night they get their fish and then they go to the games and you know I got to pick and choose and it's a little disappointing not only for the fans but for us as well let's talk about our predictions and I'm not too happy in the central Lakeshore conference we both picked random lake and they did win first place they tied for first with Huesburg at five and one so we get kudos for that pick in the eastern Wisconsin conference I had a big booboo because I picked Chilton they're not in that conference anymore you pick Plymouth Plymouth finished down a little bit Qwani Qwascom pardon me finished at seven and oh so we didn't do so good in that conference in the Fox River Valley you pick Dash Wabanan and again it was actually I found out this was a three way tie for the conference championship with Dupur and Baport I on the other hand went traditional picked Notre Dame and they finished down but they finished five in overall. It's time to do our picking. Who are you gonna pick in the Central Lakeshore? I'm gonna go with Random Lake again. I'm gonna go with Howard's Grove. We'll jot this down after. Like maybe way after. Eastern Wisconsin Conference. I'm gonna take Plymouth again. And with Danita's not at Falls this year, we'll see what's how Falls does with some changes over there. Okay, I'm gonna go with Q. Oscombe. Hopefully they can do it two years in a row. And then we have the Fox River Valley Conference again. I know there was a very young squad that did well last year. I'm taking Bayport. Bayport, okay. And I'll take Ash Waban on your pick from last year. Any more comments out of you? No, I think there was an interesting situation last year. You saw the Bay Conference teams all doing very well. And we'll see if that changes. Hopefully one of our teams here in the area maybe competes for a birth. Okay, with that we're gonna sign off. Wanna thank you for watching again. Thanks to the coaches for coming in. And we'll all see you on the 29th for that first high school football game north. That's, pardon me, south at Cheboyga North. Thanks for watching everybody. We'll see you down the road.