 Welcome to TV8's 2007 High School Football Coaches show. My name is Mike Martin. Joining me is Chris Wright. Chris, we're gonna have a great season again this year. Yes, I'm really looking forward to it. It's hard to believe that summer's almost at an end, and I drove by North High School the other day, and I saw the guys practicing. And the track all ripped up. The track all ripped up, but we're ready to roll. Now, what we're gonna do this year is during the breaks between the coaches, we're gonna show the home schedules of the different schools we're gonna be covering. Lutheran, North and South. And then, in our final segment, Chris, we've got something that we do every year. Yeah, we always try to make some predictions and things like that. Last year we didn't do so well, but we'll see if we do any better this year. Maybe our fans don't remember either. We also have a bit of a change at South with their coaching staff, and a bit of a change, not a bit of a change, a big change in the Fox River Valley Conference, which is no longer the Fox River Valley. Yeah, unfortunately, the conference disbanded, or actually you could just say now we're gonna call it the Fox River Valley Classic Conference is what it's basically called. And four new teams have entered, Ashwabanan, Bayport, Depeer and Pulaski. For the football season, basically what they did is they are only gonna play eight games, so you won't play everybody the same, which leads us to another situation where North and South aren't playing a conference game, but they're gonna open the season on August 24th, Friday night, yet South High playing each other. Now, the four schools that enter the conference are good athletic schools, but a couple of them are really gonna be pretty tough in football. Bayport and Ashwabanan are traditional powerhouses, and I mean, you're talking Ashwabanan, that's one of some state championships, and it doesn't get any easier for the Cheboygan schools, but they strap on the helmets the same way as they do in Cheboygan, so let's see how it rolls. All right, we're gonna step out and when we come back, Crystal have coach Al Holzheimer from Cheboygan Lutheran Corps. Welcome back, I'm with coach Holzheimer from Kohler, Cheboygan Lutheran, tough year last year, coach. Yeah, it was, we obviously didn't do as well as we wanted to, but I think we learned a lot with having the Kohler kids there, that was a learning experience in itself there. I think we were a pretty young team, even though we had 10 seniors, a lot of them played for the first time, so yeah, there was a lot of growing, a lot of kids, a lot of sophomores played on varsity, and so I hope that that continues to help us this year. Yeah, can you rebound after a year like that? I think so, I mean, our numbers are pretty steady from this year, from last year to this year. You know, we've had a pretty enthusiastic attitude through camp. You know, with that we looked at some changes that we have to do as a football program. I've got it more experienced staff this year. First time in three years I have a defensive coordinator, so I'm not calling both offense and defense, so that's helped tremendously. I think we're better prepared when we come to practices now with me just focusing on one side of the ball. Also have a head JV coach that's new to our program, but he's had a lot of experience at other places, and so the kids are really enthused about that, and we've started to separate our practices now, so that's another change we do a lot of our technique time together as a group, but then we separate a little sooner than we have been in the past, and we're doing a lot of half-line stuff just to get good on good, and our older kids against older kids, but I think those are all things we're gonna pay off. We have more kids in our weight room this summer than we've ever had, so just a lot of changes like that that I think we'll rebound well from last year. I'm very positive. I know I mentioned in the beginning, Kohler, Sheboygan Lutheran, how is that working out with Kohler? You know, the people there have been great, even throughout the last year. You know, I'm talking about parents, their administration, their athletic director. They just like having football back in Kohler, and so they've treated us really well. I'm really pleased of how things turned out. This year we're continuing it again, and we've also added a few other sports at our school that we're gonna, or for the both schools that we're gonna combine, so it's just a neat relationship between the two schools. I know when we went out there last year, you could just feel the atmosphere of the Kohler people because they had football for such a long time. It was nice to see them have that. Yeah, and I was, you know, I'd go out in the community and talk to some people, and they were really excited about that. People I didn't even know at all, and just come up to you, hey, thanks for doing that, and I'd give them the credit for coming out and wanting to be a part of what we're doing, and it's a win-win for the kids. I mean, that's the bottom line. Those kids get to play a sport today, or otherwise, they won't get to play, and it helps us out, too. Let's talk a little bit about this year's strength for your football team this season. Well, you know, last year, with having some struggles, we kind of find out who your leaders are through that, and a lot of those guys are coming over as seniors this year, and so that's one strength. I mean, our upperclassmen have been involved in the summer workouts. You know, they're showing the kids how to do things right, so that's a big plus for us. We have all of our receivers back from last year, Harrison Dale and Dominic Frini. You know, just Dominic's really quick. I mean, he's a track guy that's done really well there, so I feel really, really good about that. Any other players that you might stand out we'll see on Friday nights? Right now, we have kind of a position battle quarterback with Kurt Ducco and Kurt Stilo. Both of them are working hard through camp here and trying to separate themselves. It's kind of new to Kurt's been our JV quarterback the last couple of years, and Kurt Ducco has, and Kurt Stilo is his first shot at it, and we're trying to do a little option stuff with him, and he's a short, quick kid, though, and we'll see what happens there. Ryan Johansson, he played slot receiver for us last year, and he lifted himself to fullback this year. I mean, he was a really strong kid, and so we're looking forward to seeing what he can do there. With the tailbacks, we have Mike Cannable, Harrison Dale's also taken some reps there, too, and Mike's one of the kids from Kohler, and he's a state tennis champion, and he really moves on his feet really well, and he's a pretty tough kid, too, so I look forward to seeing him out there. You mentioned a new defensive coordinator. Any new wrinkles at Lutheran? Pretty much a 44 defense. Our corners are going to be pretty much man-to-man on an island with them, and Dominic and Harrison and David Radloff are the kind of guys who are going to rotate in a corner, and so we're coaching them up to get them going. Sounds good. I think you guys play in one of the toughest small conferences in the league, or excuse me, in the whole state. I think when you talk about Random Lake and Cedar Grove and Ozaki and some of the things that these teams have played, can it continue this year for the league? Yeah, it is. I know some of the coaches, their numbers are down, but there's just good quality coaches in our conference, too. Those kids are used to winning through their other levels and other programs. Howard's Grove, they're one of the best JV teams, so if those guys carry that over, they're going to continue to be tough. But yeah, with Alcott Lake joining back there, that's kind of a nice fill the schedule up a little bit, too. I look forward to a good conference season. Well, I think we got you a couple of times this season, coach, so thanks so much for coming in, and best of luck to you. When I return, I'll have Coach Brickson from Sheboygan North. Welcome back, everybody. I'm here with Coach Brickson from Sheboygan North. Coach, what a run last year. Yeah, last year was fun. We came in, you know, two years ago, talking about making the playoffs. I think we're all, to be honest with you, a little surprised we made the playoffs, but I'm not surprised at their attitude and their heart and their effort what they gave. You know, we started out in a whole own four last year, and we got to battle back, and to battle back, that just shows the character of those young men. Making the playoffs was just unbelievable. I think you got the most out of your team last year, and I think that's a tribute to you and your coaches. Well, thanks. I agree. I've got a great staff. I'm lucky. I have a great staff, some that have been here when I got here. We've made a few changes as well, but we have a good core group of coaches that really care about our kids, and they care about the kids as people before they are football players, and they specialize in their own areas, and I can't do it all. I've got all my coaches, and the delegation takes place, and they do really good work for me. And a parallel to you guys to the Girls' Basketball Program, I think the success that they have is really encouraged young ladies to go out for Girls' Basketball. Can you carry the same momentum of your success last year to the football team? I'd like to think we can. I knew when I came in here two years ago that we had those kids in the hallways, and for every reason, some of them just chose not to play football. Well, we've doubled the size of the program. We're up to about 130, 140 players in the whole program, 9 through 12, and we have generated that excitement. So we have a ways to go yet, I think, before we're going to get to that championship level, but who knows? We surprised people last year. I told the guys this year anything can happen. We're coming into a new conference. It's not going to be any easier. That's for sure. We're playing some good teams in the scrimmage coming up this Friday as well at Fond du Lac. We're playing Fond du Lac in Wisconsin Rapids Lincoln. And so you've got to play the best to be the best, and that's always been my belief. Yeah, you mentioned numbers. I heard the freshman numbers are outstanding, and again, I think that's a tribute to your success. Well, and also it's a tribute to youth football. Sheboygan Youth Football has implemented some offense from north and some offense from south, and Chris and I, of course, we get along really, really well, and we appreciate both of our programs. And they're still in the young stages of the development of getting their guys to learn our offense, but the bottom line is you look at Green Bay Schools, Manitowoc, anybody that we're going to play, they're going to have youth programs that are going to run down even further down to probably fourth or fifth grade, and they're going to run the same thing, and they're going to run in the high school. So we've noticed and we've seen a big difference this year where we've had our freshmen come in. They've been running the Wingtea now for two years, the seventh and eighth graders. We've lost freshman, as opposed to the new group that I had when I first got here. You lost some pretty good ones last year, you know, Nick Jones and, you know, Hummer and stuff, but you returned some fine players too, you know, Matt Rosey and David Thompson and a number of others. Right. Actually, our strength is probably going to be right now our linebacking core. We lost really good kids last year. We lose kids every year, but we did lose a really good group of seniors last year with Ragoza and Jones and, you know, Marafino did a great job leading us. But overall, I think that we've got guys to replace them. Our linebacking core, we're looking with three of the guys that have played there on and off, two for sure, three, mostly for the last year, our Travis Bando Water, David Thompson and Matt Rosey. Now, that's a strong linebacking core right there. We probably, for the first time, I think I've ever been a head coach, I'm going to say we're actually a little bit slower this year, I think. We've got speed, but we're not as quick and agile as we are normally, but we actually have, I don't know exactly the number, we probably have about 10 kids over 225, which is amazing for North football because we just don't seem to get those big kids. This year we have some and we're in the process of developing them into good football players. Any players you want to mention? Other big players we should watch for on Friday nights, either on the offensive line, defensive line, speciality players or anything like that? Well, there's so many, and you know, it's tough to pick one or two, but we have a lot of guys that have to prove themselves this year, and they've been proving themselves and attempting to prove themselves and get better because we still have some positions that we have to fill. Now, we haven't even been to our first scrimmage yet, so we're still shuffling people around, we're getting a little better at knowing who's going to play where, but hopefully my goal anyway is what I'd like to see in the past is it's always nice to have a standout player, but sometimes it's even better I think if you don't have the big standout player and that sort of emphasizes the fact that you've got really good continuity with your whole team and hopefully we'll attempt to do that again this year. And that's a lot what your program was last year as well. Not a lot of all stars, but just a group of kids that bonded together, so I agree with you there. New league, new challenges, huh? Four new teams in the league and you don't play everybody, it's going to be a little different. Right, well we have to adjust a little bit. You know, this conference I don't care for the fact the way it's set up, I don't mind the teams that came in I think it's great that we're playing those four bay teams I think it's going to strengthen the conference in general. I just don't like the fact that we have to play south it's a non-conference game, we'll play south every year but it seems pretty ridiculous to play them as a non-conference game and the same goes for east and west in Green Bay, they've got to do the same thing as well. We're fighting, you know, in two years they get a chance to look back and see how well this has worked and, you know, I've always been pushing and my athletic director has been pushing for two, six team divisions and then we'll have some crossover games. If they're going to go with this 12 team league, which they are then it would be better to go in two separate divisions in my opinion because it's real tough right now to decide who is going to be the conference champion. We might end up having two or three teams being our conference champion and how do you figure out who is actually the conference champion. That's going to be part of my ending you're already stealing some of my thunder because you could have a bunch of teams with one loss and it's going to be strange and I agree, I don't know about the future of this. You mentioned in our south game just so happened the way the schedule worked out that you don't play south as a conference game this year so as a result you have to play them the first game of the season and that's going to be unique. Well it was quite a special year last year in general and we have south as our last regular season football game the hype and energy that everybody brought was outstanding. We looked forward to that all year long without looking ahead but we did and I thought at the last game of the year even somewhere in the middle it's a positive thing. We'll still go at it as a positive thing I just don't think south north are going to be at full strength be curious to see what we do if we end up competing against each other at the end of the season. What I don't like about it too is it gives possibly one team in the playoffs one team with a loss already too which doesn't help as well. We'll see how that goes. Well thanks so much for coming in coach best of luck to you. We'll obviously see you a week from Friday and come out of there healthy this week on Friday night or excuse me Saturday at your scrimmage when Marty returns he'll have Coach Hine with us. Joining me on the set is South High head football coach Chris Hine and Chris a little different setup this year I know last year Dave and you were co-head coaches this time you're all alone what are some of the challenges with being the head guy? Well I think the biggest challenge for any head coach is the stuff that happens off the field the administrative stuff you know the ordering of uniforms equipment just the demands off the field have been the biggest challenge you know now that we're into practice it's actually a relief for me I feel like I have more time now to do things that I really got into coaching for and that's to work with the kids and to be on the field with them. One of the things was getting in touch with you to set up the interviews and that that we're doing today and I caught you on a bad day I was like 90 degrees out and you're moving so that's got to all add up too. Yeah that was bad timing too but my roommate decided to get married a week before football so at that time I thought I probably should move out probably the right thing to do and yeah it was not a very nice day weather wise. Now Ray Smith was one of the top backs in the conference last year and he got hurt he's coming back from an injury and how's he doing? Well it's early in the year I mean obviously we've had three padded practices at this time but we have huge expectations for Ray he's started since his sophomore year and he's known in the conference as a talent as he mentioned he missed the last four games really of last season and he looks to be healthy we're just hoping that he's coming out with the attitude that he should dominate games this year and we really expect him to. Beginning of last season you experimented with a one back offense and finished up with a two back offense what are you going to go with this year and who's going to be that second back and who's going to vary I mean it really depends on who emerges in the first two weeks of practice we're going to try to get our best 11 players on the field and we really don't know at this point who those 11 are going to be if it's going to be four receivers and one back or two backs and two receivers or two backs and three receivers and no tight end I'm really at this point I can honestly tell you we're looking at that that's why we have two days do we have so many that can be in the back field with Ray or are we better off with another receiver when you look at Saltaille football over the last seven, eight, nine years I think one thing that stands out is the offensive line play has really excelled actually and how does that look to be this year? We're very young in the offensive line it's very likely we're going to start four juniors and one senior James Poutel is our only returning starter in the offensive line he is a junior so we're inexperienced but we're very excited we like our kids there a lot it's just how long is it going to take them to mature to understand what it takes to play football at the varsity level in a very good conference in all this year One of the things that you're coming back with is a lack of skilled players at least starters from last year you know you lost Wilson and Lancer was an excellent tight end Taylor Schwartz at quarterback who's going to fill those spots? Well a quarterback right now looks to be John Kabai but he's being challenged by Jake Risto two very good athletes that we like a lot Good friends too am I right? Yeah good friends play baseball together we like both of them a lot we have a lot of confidence in both so we're going to use our quarterback I think more than we have in the past so John right now looks to be have the lead at that position at the other receiver position we do return Travis Burnett at our split end there's a competition between Wilson Curtis Wilson and Grant Renzelman who's out for football for the first year and we're really excited about him and what he's shown so far Now we've talked a lot of offense I know you love defense in the football game and you've called the defense over the last number of years with being the head coach how is that all going to shake out calling offense calling defense Well I'm still going to call the defense and that's my primary focus what I think I know best so I don't want to move away from that and Chris Korf will be our offensive coordinator this year he did I think a great job the last five games of the season last year stepping into a position that he never done before so I have a lot of confidence in him calling the offense and really want to stay out of that as much as I can Let's talk a little more about the defense Chris you know the unit itself what's going to be your base defense you know who's going to excel on defense Yeah I guess basically we're a more defense I guess you'd call us but we do play multiple fronts we've done that since I've been here and we'll continue to do that we don't bring back a lot of experience on defense really two kids that started for us last year Colin Johnson who was all conference safety last year and Jeff Zelko and in week four we'll be getting back Steve Bakke who should be an exceptional linebacker for us so we're going to be an experience on defense I remember back when I was at Chilton one of the best teams they had was a very quick team on defense I'm talking about how's the quickness look on your defensive unit I like our speed right now I do and it's a good thing we have speed because we don't have a lot of size especially early in the season until we get some of the players I mentioned before back we're going to be small in defense but I take speed anytime over size and since I've been at South we've never really been a very big defense we've always predicated our defense on speed and hustle and really trying to eliminate mental errors let's talk a little bit about two-way starters because I know there's an argument on the board you know people say we want to get your best athletes on the field and there's another argument saying well you want to keep your best athletes at their best position fresh now where do you stand on that well we started two platooning about four years ago and I think it's something that I still believe in I think it has advantages to it I think it helps your numbers because you have the potential to have 22 different starters which helps your off-season commitment I think we can focus on that one player can focus on one position and should become theoretically better at that one position than if he had to spend time in practice trying to learn an offensive position and a defensive position so I think we also elevate each player's ability at their one position so it's not something that we really can't get away from there's always exceptions although this year as of right now is the first year that we will have nobody as of right now playing both sides of the ball I like your argument I think it's really valid let's jump over to the new conference this year obviously you're going to place north the first game of the year it's going to be non-conference how does south seem to shake up in that respect with the new conference I know Ash Wabanan and Bayport are pretty tough but I think it's important that our conference has gotten significantly stronger in football I mean Ash Wabanan has won numerous state titles in the last decade alone Bayport's been in the state quarterfinals division one the last two years so we're bringing in two very highly respected very strong football programs into this conference not to mention the peer which is an up-and-coming program in Pulaski so and you add that to Notre Dame the new conference and things have gotten tougher and that's no secret to anybody how do you see your team shaking out this year well I think you know number one after last year I just don't even want to think about predictions we didn't pick you you know the one thing I learned from last year is don't ever take health for granted whether it's our players health or my health missing the north game we just were devastated last year by injuries and so number one we need to stay healthy if you could guarantee me right now that we would stay healthy the entire season then I could give you some predictions but I don't know if you can make that guarantee Chris thanks a lot for stopping in and good luck this season we'll see you on the 24th we're going to step out when we come back Chris and I will be on the set and we're going to talk about the TV8 schedule and about our annual predictions for this upcoming season so stay tuned we'll be right back welcome back everybody thanks for coming in and helping to make this show possible they always give their time Chris and we really appreciate it yes and they're always just wonderful interviews as well and Sheboygan should be very lucky to have such fine gentlemen running their kids programs let's talk a little bit about TV8's football schedule and if you don't have it I've got a copy but we've got some great games coming up not just on a high school level either yes we're going to obviously be out of Lakeland again this season which is always a fun trip to go out there and it's going to rain on us like it did last year but they have a new coach out there as well so things will be changed out there a couple Lutheran games and of course probably get to see a couple new teams that we talked about before that have entered the conference let's talk about that first game coming up North-South North-South game right away on a Friday and Coach Brickson I know mentioned that it's going to be a little strange starting at the beginning of the year those teams probably won't be at the peak of what they will be at the end of the year they're going to have to go off last year's tape maybe some tape from the scrimmages if they send a scout or how not that any coaches would do that but go to the scrimmage before that but it would be exciting at the beginning of the show we talked just briefly about the new schools in the Fox River Classic Conference and we're going to get to see two of those schools Ash Wabanan and Depeer what do we know about Ash Wabanan well as I mentioned before they're a powerhouse and they'll be a team to reckon with in a couple of minutes let's go through the part of the program that we really enjoy and we did terrible last year let's talk a little bit about the Central Lakeshore Conference last year I predicted Ozaki as the winner you also predicted Ozaki as the winner the winners were Random Lake, Cedar Grove and Howard's Grove they all finished at five and one this year I'm going to go with Coach Al and Random Lake earlier in the program I'm agreeing with that statement too Marty so we're right off on the same foot so we're both going to be wrong on the same one this year again the same conference I think Random Lake has a lot of their horses back as Coach Holsheimer mentioned and I agree with that one of the things that Coach Al said was that most of those schools that were up at the top last year lost some players and I know one good we saw last year Cedar Grove's Joe Burton they're gone and he ran all over Sheboygan Lutheran Kohler last year and I think the teams in that conference are glad he graduated let's talk a little bit about the Eastern Wisconsin Conference last year we both picked Sheboygan Falls they did not finish on top it was Q. Oskman Plymouth at six and one this year I'm picking Chilton yeah well with Sheboygan Falls finally losing Coach Yedis after a number of years I'm going to try to make a change and I'm actually going to take Plymouth this season and I'm going to take the purple land over there next door to us but I think they'll be kind of an interesting team to watch and we should watch them in the paper because Falls is always very exciting for football the new coach out there is a gentleman by the name of Mike Nixon and I know I'm talking to Doug Johnson throughout the summer we umpired some baseball games together he thinks they're going to be pretty tough again yeah I'm sure they will okay let's jump to the Fox River Classic Conference and they have four new schools Ashwabana and made the playoffs or not I was definitely able to nail down Bayport made the conference or made the playoffs last year last year I picked South you picked Notre Dame it was a co-championship so you get half a point I got zero Manti and Notre Dame both finished at six and one I'm picking Notre Dame this year I think Notre Dame will be outstanding but one thing as we mentioned before with the schedules mixed you don't always play certain teams you don't always take Ashwabana as a power and to spoil the old schools of the valley alrighty our first TV8 game is going to be August 24th we've mentioned it over and over on the program it'll be North Salt and it'll be a non-conference game thanks goes out to the crew for their fine work Kerry Kautzer, Scott Miloff, Fritz Zink and Steve Reiner for Chris Wright I'm Mike Martin saying thanks for watching everybody and we'll see you down the road