The first game of the 2023 high school football season is still a good three months away, but for the Sapulpa Chieftains, the level of excitement and optimism for next season is high.
The team has been holding its spring practices for the past two weeks at George F. Collins Stadium, culminating with a 10-team practice session at Claremore on Friday, May 26.
It is obvious that the players are happy to be back on the field and getting excited about taking the field several months after completing last season with a 7-4 record and a Class 5A playoff appearance.
“This is great, all the guys love being out here, it’s always so much fun,” said starting quarterback Colton Howard. “Practice is very energetic, we try to have as much fun as we can out here and turn that into games.”
Chieftain coach Tim Holt likes what he’s seen out on the field the past two weeks, and with a more veteran squad that returns a lot of key starters, the level of instruction that he could impart on the players has been more advanced than in recent years.
“I think we’re right where we need to be, as far as what we’re installing and what the kids are picking up,” Holt said. “As coaches, sometimes we have to scale back, sometimes we have to put a little bit more on them and I think this year is one of those years where we’re putting a lot more on them. Our staff has been here, going into Year 3, so our kids know the system and when we install stuff, it’s a little bit easier because the kids are familiar with it, so we’re able to get a little more in-depth about what we’re doing. I think at this point, as opposed to last year, we’re miles ahead of where we were. We’ve got really good numbers, we have I think about 75 kids on our roster right now, grades 10-12. It’s been right where we think.”
The Claremore Team Camp on Friday was a good opportunity for the Chieftains to measure themselves against other teams and a chance to battle in practice against other teams instead of each other. There were different drills where the Sapulpa offense went up against the defense of another team or the Chieftains’ defense competed against another team’s offense. They rotated groups of players through different stations in 20-minute increments over a three-hour session.
It was also a good chance for the coaching staff to evaluate players as they all compete for spots on the depth chart.
“That’s kind of our incentive for spring ball, we spent two weeks getting ready to go to that, that’s kind of our game for the spring,” Holt said.
Expectations are high for the club’s 2023 season, especially with a potent offensive trio returning that consists of Howard at quarterback, Marco Smith at running back and Kylen Edwards as the top receiver.
“We got a lot of kids returning, so I think we’re hitting that part of it just right,” Holt said. “We were super young last year, but with what we were able to accomplish last year, with the kids coming back and all the situations we went through, nothing’s new to us anymore, so we’re able to say, ‘Hey, we’ve been in this situation before,’ we’re not panicking or we’re not unsure of what to do. Having a veteran group back, we’ve got three of the best players in the whole district, if not the whole state, on our team, with Colton Howard, Marco Smith and Kylen Edwards. You don’t get that very often. Hopefully, we can make it all work and we can get hot at the right time.”
And it goes beyond those three headliners. There are other experienced players coming back that Holt will rely upon quite a bit.
“Up front, we’ve got Kyler Bearpaw and Jamison Roland and Isaiah Watashe, those are all returning starters that’ll all play significant snaps on both sides of the ball,” Holt said. “They’re really good football players; big, scary, fast kids. We’re going to be tough to handle if we just go out and play hard. It could be a special year for us.”
Howard, who will be a senior, also believes the coming season, which kicks off Aug. 25 at Highway 97 rival Sand Springs, can be a memorable one.
“This year, we come back with a lot of experience,” Howard said. “We have an experienced O-Line; me, my running back Marco Smith, Kylen… I think we’re going to do really well. We just got to finish games. We got to play a full four quarters. That will be good. 10-0 is the expectation. We got to go get that gold ball.’ That’s what we’re trying to aim for.”
Holt is very well aware that the Chieftains have only won four playoff games in school history, and never more than one in the same season, with the last one coming in 2005 when they were in Class 6A.
“We want to be that fifth team really bad,” Holt said. “We’ve been close, but we’ll see if we can get it done this year.”
