SEYMOUR
There are a lot of holes to fill across the board for the Seymour football team.
The Owls, who have made steady progress through the first two years of coach Michael Kelly’s tenure, only have one returning defensive starter and gaps to fix at some offensive skill positions.
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Saturday night’s Purple and White Scrimmage was the first good look for Kelly and his staff to get a good look at who really wants a varsity starting job and who wants to compete every Friday night under the lights.
“Who is ready to compete?” Kelly asked. “That’s kind of been our mantra all preseason long. We want to see the guys that are ready to compete, ready to get after it, ready to fight, ready to challenge and ready to push themselves into being a starter.”
The lone returning defensive starter for the Owls is Ethan Corwin, who is Kelly’s nephew and plays middle linebacker. Kelly expects to lean on Corwin quite a bit this year to be a vocal leader for the defense and relate the sort intensity they expect on that side of the ball.
Kelly notes there are a lot of players on the defense that got varsity playing time last year but Corwin is the only true returner.
Out on offense, starting quarterback Brendan Smith returns for his second year running the show. It’s his third year as a varsity player — he played defense as a sophomore — and he’s got plenty of new skill players to work with.
He got his first good taste of what a game-like situation will be like with many of his new players on Saturday night.
Colin Greathouse, Josh Pennington and Chandler Dummond all got a little taste of the action on Saturday night in the offensive backfield. They’ll be trying to fill the void left by Nathan O’Mara, who rushed for nearly 2,000 yards last year.
Ely Henderson is the top returning wide out for Smith but he also got to work with a lot of speedsters that Kelly believes will play some valuable minutes.
Drew Vehslage, Memphis Stoffregen, Evan Vehslage, Aden Burnside and Dylan Fields could all be called upon at some point this season says Kelly.
In the trenches, plenty of familiar faces were protecting Smith, like Adam Carter, Corey Motosicky and Cameron Barr. Still, Kelly doesn’t want anyone who has played varsity for a few years to get complacent.
“We’ve got a lot of positions where, even with guys that are returners, I want to create a competition and create an environment where they’re going to have to compete for their job,” Kelly said. “We’ve got some guys that have been playing for a while and, sometimes, that can create the adverse effect to not put forth the right amount of effort.”
Seymour will get one more chance to compete before the season starts on August 23 against South Dearborn.
They’ll travel to Silver Creek on Friday, August 16 to battle the Dragons in a scrimmage at 7 p.m. at the Silver Creek High School football field.