The beginning of high school football season is just 44 days away, which means I think it's an appropriate time to start preparing for the 2019 season.
The success of many teams can often be attributed to how much production they return from the prior year or how much they graduated. It's not alway's a guarantee for a more successful season, but it is a strong indicator. For example, last year I pointed out that Treynor returned every single rushing yard from the 2017 season. The Cardinals went on to an 8-2 record in 2018 and claimed the district championship. Red Oak also returned every single rushing yard from their 2017 season and saw a three-win improvement last season.
I attempted to quantify the offensive production that each team in area districts return. Area Districts include Districts 1, 6, 7 and 8 in 8-Man, Districts 2, 8, 9 and 10 in Class A, Districts 8 and 9 in Class 1A, District 9 in Class 2A, Districts 1 and 9 in Class 3A and District 7 in Class 4A. This blog will focus solely on Class 8-Man.
For this project, I calculated the percentage of passing touchdowns, passing yards, rushing touchdowns, rushing yards, receptions, receiving yards, receiving touchdowns and points that were accumulated by non-seniors. I then averaged the percentages of those eight categories to get an "average" percentage of production that each team returns. It's not a perfect system, but it's the best I could think of.
Now, onto the numbers and the districts. Teams' 2018 record is posted in parentheses. The percentage listed is the number of returning production calculated through the average of the eight categories.
DISCLAIMER: I went solely off QuikStats. This project does not calculate for incoming freshman or production last year that came from underclassmen who may not be playing this year. I have no way of knowing about these situations and cannot factor them into these numbers.
District 1: 1. Harris-Lake Park (3-6) 100 %, 2. St. Mary's-Remsen (6-3) 100%, 3. Newell Fonda (8-2) 83%, 4. River Valley (2-7) 49%, 5. Kingsley-Pierson (5-4) 42%, 6. Clay Central-Everly (0-9) 36%, 7. West Bend-Mallard (5-4) 14%, 8. Ar-We-Va (10-1) 6%
Ar-We-Va's undefeated regular season was led by the dominant senior duo of Keegan Simons and Drew Schurke. The Rockets graduated all 2,308 passing yards from 2018 and will return just 232 rushing yards and 216 receiving yards. Meanwhile, district runner-up Newell Fonda returns almost all of it's production and most importantly, a dual-threat quarterback in Bryce Coppock, who threw for 1000 yards, ran for another 1,600 yards, threw 12 touchdowns and ran for 12. The Mustangs also return many other contributors around Coppock and will likely be the favorite in the district. Harris-Lake Park had zero seniors and just six juniors last year while St. Mary's Remsen went 6-3 with zero seniors on the roster thanks to monster production from soon-to-be junior Blaine Harpenau.
District 6: 1. Lamoni (5-4) 100%, 2. Murray (3-6) 55%, 3. Lenox (7-3) 49%, 4. Mormon Trail (5-4), 45%, 5. Seymour (1-8) 33%, 6. Southeast Warren (12-1) 29%, 7. Moravia (3-6) 26%, 8. East Union (5-4) 16%
Southeast Warren's move down to 8-man could not have come at a better time for the Warhawks. Last year they rode a veteran-heavy, high-tempo offense all the way to a state semifinal. Many of the pieces from that team are gone, but they do return a handful of nice pieces. Lamoni had a five-game winning streak book-ended by a pair of two-game losing streaks in 2018 and had just three seniors on the roster. Patrick Savage ran or threw for 42 total touchdowns to lead the Demons' offense last year, and he's back and ready to do it again in 2019. Murray went from 0-9 in 2017 to 3-6 in 2018. The Mustangs return over half of their 2018 offensive-production, so another win improvement is certainly possible.
I think Lenox is the most intriguing team in this district coming into the season. The Tigers lost their quarterback, Carter Still, but they did not throw the ball much anyways (just 7 TD's and 376 yards). Still's impact will be missed way more on the ground where he ran for 861 yards and 17 scores. The good news for Lenox is they return the beast that is Colton Gordon (1,548 yards and 26 yards.) and every other rushing yard and touchdown aside from Still. If Lenox can quickly replace Still, then they might become the favorite to win the district.
District 7: 1. Bedford (3-6) 81%, 2. East Mills (7-2) 66%, 3. Griswold (2-7) 60%, 4. Stanton/Essex (7-3, 1-8) 51%, 5. Fremont-Mills (10-2) 34%, 6. Sidney (5-4) 8%.
There are two very important things of note in this district. Essex and Stanton will share football this season, I added their returning offensive production together to receive their total, also Clarinda Academy is also in this district but did not have any stats available on QuikStats, also it's tough to predict whether or not they will return anybody from year-to-year.
I am very intrigued by the combination of Stanton and Essex. Stanton's offense relied heavily on Drake Johnson last year, but he's since graduated. Luckily Essex has a young man named Colton Thornburg, who could certainly fill the void Johnson left. Thornburg was the signal-caller in Essex last year, but I think he will be used in a running back/wide receiver role for the Vikings due to the return of junior signal-caller Keygan Day. In total, the combo of Stanton and Essex return 98 percent of their passing production and 49% of their rushing. The biggest void comes in the receiving category, but like I said, Thornburg might fill that.
Bedford returns the dynamic duo of Cooper Nally and Brennan Sefrit along with the productive duo of Eli Morris and Jacob French. In total, the Bulldogs return 100 percent of their passing production and 92 percent of their rushing production Griswold returns 80 percent of their run production and if you aren't familiar with Griswold, running the ball is pretty much all they do, so 80 percent is a huge number for the Tigers.
East Mills narrowly missed the playoffs last season, but good news for them is that they return the passing and receiving combination of Michael Schafer and Nic Duysen. Fremont-Mills lost a very productive senior class, but they return Division I prospect Seth Malcom and have been able to groom many underclassmen for this situation by giving them valuable minutes in many blowout victories. Sidney will be forced to rely on almost entirely new faces in 2019, but they've done it before with success, so I wouldn't be surprised to see them do it again.
District 8: 1. Glidden-Ralston (6-3) 94%, 2. Audubon (6-4) 92%, 3. Boyer Valley (1-8) 78%, 4. Coon Rapids-Bayard (4-5) 72%, 5. Woodbine (5-4) 62%, 6. West Harrison (0-9) 44%, 7. CAM (6-3) 30%, 8. Exira-EHK (9-2) 9%
Two of the top four teams from last year (Glidden-Ralston and Audubon) return the most production while the other top two (Exira-EHK and CAM) return the least. Glidden-Ralston returns all of its' passing production, 96 percent of it's rushing production and it's top four leading receivers from a 6-3 team while Audubon returns all of its' passing and rushing production from last year, led by quarterback Skyler Schultes. Boyer Valley returns some really nice pieces and should be expected to improve from their 1-8 2018 campaign. Coon Rapids-Bayard will look to replace over half of its receiving production but returns 84 percent of its' passing and 93 percent of rushing production. Woodbine returns the dynamic Pryor brothers, Wyatt and Lane, but will be forced to replace l,000-yard rusher Tyler Colberly.
West Harrison returns almost all of its' passing production but will have to make up ground in the running game, which returns a negative total of rushing yards due to a large number of sacks on quarterback Colby Neill. CAM will be forced to replace the likes of Preston Murphy, Isaac Bower and Mitchell Williamson, but they have pieces such as Nate Hensley and Lane Spieker that should be able to fill that void. Exira-EHK rode the veteran presence of Josh Pettepier, Cole Burmeister and Jayden Goodwin to a district title, but all three are gone and the Spartans are left with just six percent of their rushing production. Good news for them is Tyler Petersen saw action in 2018 because of injuries and should be prepared to take over. Plus, I never doubt a Tom Petersen coached team.
This district was crazy last year, I think there are two favorites (Audubon and Glidden-Ralston) coming into the season, but that doesn't mean it won't still be crazy.
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