By Chuck Reherman
Sports Editor
Taking steps forward.
Yukon’s Miller football team has done that the first two years under head coach Jeremy Reed.
The Millers begin year three under Reed and will be looking to take bigger steps forward when the team opens pre-season drills Monday.
The Millers return six starters from last year’s 6-4 team (five on offense and one on defense), but with players having been in the program going on three years, the Millers look to continue to build on their success.
“We are ready to get this started, it is time to do some football stuff,” YHS head coach Jeremy Reed said. “Everyone has had their fill of being in the weight room, running and doing all the things that build up to it. Everyone is ready to get outside and do the real thing and practice football. It has been plenty of time in the off-season, its’s time to be in-season.
“We feel we can come in and pick up where we have left off in the spring,” he said. “We have done a lot through the spring and summer physically and mentally,” he said. “Our first day of practice is going to look completely different than what it did two years ago. We are ready to go and pick up with what we did in the spring on day one. I feel we will have a lot of retention.
“It is a big benefit when you are in year three of a program compared to year one and even year two. Even with an inexperienced team, they have still been around us and know what we are doing for the most part.
“We feel good about going into it and being able to build on what we did and lead up to that week zero game. You better have a good plan going into week zero, because it gets here really fast. What you did in the spring plays a really big part into that plan. This plan that we have started a long time ago and it will just build on the final stages. We have 10 practices, a scrimmage and then we play. That is asking a lot from a football team.”
The Millers will have only three days of practices before the start of school with the varsity practicing from 6-8:30 p.m. with freshman through varsity. On Tuesday, the varsity will practice from 4-6:30 p.m. and the freshman from 6:45-8:45 p.m. On Wednesday, the team will practice from 8:10-9:40 and the freshman from 3-5 p.m. Thursday is the first day of school and will start regular practices.
“These first four days without pads is odd compared to what you can do in the spring,” Reed said. “You can go out in pads the first practice of spring, but the rule is we have to be in shorts and helmets these first four days. It limits what you can do, but we will get the most out of it that we can.
“We are excited about the team that we have,” Reed said. “We know we have some challenges and obstacles with the inexperience, but they have the right mind set of what they are wanting to achieve and how to go about and achieve it.”
