A hungry Belton Tigers squad - 7-33 the past four seasons - wants to sniff some of that success.
And the easiest way to do that is to imitate the model of highly touted Ennis, the Tigers’ season-opening opponent tonight.
“You can look at them and what they’ve done,” said Belton second-year coach Rodney Southern, who led Marshall against Ennis in 2004’s 4A Division I final. “You don’t know what Sam has done on the inside, but if you get your three state championships out of 14 years, you’ve obviously done something right.
“When we played in 2004, I had a chance to visit with him and saw the weight room and talked to him a lot more. If you looked at models, he is a pretty good model with the success he’s had.”
Belton aims to take the first step toward turning around its program when the Tigers meet the tradition-rich Lions at 7 p.m. today at Waco ISD Stadium in the H-E-B Heart of Texas Kickoff Classic.
But before Belton, 3-7 last season, can reach Ennis’ success level, it has to find consistency.
That starts at quarterback. Junior Kevin Thornton will get the starting nod, with sophomore David Ash - a transfer from Academy - also expected to play. Thornton started against College Station A&M Consolidated in the season finale and was 7-of-16 passing for 117 yards with an interception, and he ran for 107 yards - including a 60-yard touchdown - on 13 carries.
“The biggest thing is experience and Kevin started the last game at quarterback last year and played extremely well,” Southern said. “He’s been in that fire, but I do want to see them both. I think when David is at quarterback, Kevin (15 catches for 193 yards in 2007) will be at receiver so his presence is still on the field.”
On the other side of the ball, Belton seeks to tighten a defense that allowed 31.5 points and 370.9 yards per game last season. The unit is led by senior middle linebacker and three-year starter Kyle Voss.
The Tigers struggled to handle Waco Midway’s rushing attack in last Friday’s scrimmage. If that weakness surfaces again, Belton might be in for a long night against the speedy, athletic Lions.
“I thought Midway did a good job of running their zone play and their running back did a good job of cutting back and finding the hole,” Southern said. “We didn’t play the backside cut plays very well. That’s obviously something we’ve worked on because Ennis has a couple of plays designed for that.”
Ennis senior Deonte McDade (5-10, 170 pounds), who runs the 40-yard dash in 4.4 seconds, has moved from starting quarterback to slot receiver. McDade played last year’s final seven games at QB and finished with 1,725 rushing yards and 22 touchdowns.
“He’s a playmaker-type and we weren’t able to get him the ball very well last season,” said Harrell, the father of Texas Tech star quarterback Graham Harrell. “That’s why we moved him to quarterback and then our offense picked up.”
Along with McDade at receiver is another burner in junior Kyle Guinyard, who had 28 catches for 442 yards and four TDs. Junior Jayvon King, a receiver last season, is taking his 4.4 speed to the backfield and should see plenty of holes while running behind 6-4, 285-pound Micah Kemp.
DJ Betik, an inexperienced junior quarterback who threw only 10 passes last season, takes over the reins and, according to Harrell, does a great job of distributing the ball in the spread offense.
Lineman Rob Rose, linebacker Chonston Williams and cornerback Jason Vavra - all juniors - are the top returning defenders.
For underdog Belton, Southern said his key for victory is to take care of the fundamentals.
“We’ve got to execute offensively,” he said. “We’ve got to stay on the field. Defensively, we’ve got to do a great job tackling them in the open field.”
As for some keys to catapult a bottom-tier program to the powerhouse level of Ennis, Harrell offered some advice.
“Just keep doing what you know is right,” he said. “Treat the kids right and love them and coach them at the same time. I know Rodney and I’ve seen him do it before. He’s a great coach and I’m sure he’ll get it turned around there.”
cmeister@temple-telegram.com
