Experienced War Eagles ready for redemption
Aug. 14—Last season was a tough one that offered plenty of learning experiences for a young Wagener-Salley football team with just four seniors, only one of whom had played throughout his high school career.
The inexperience created its own problems, and those were then compounded by trouble with injuries and COVID-19 protocols. Head coach Willie Fox won't let those be excuses, though, because he felt his team still should've produced better than a 4-6 record.
Those youngsters who took their lumps a year ago are back as an experienced group now, and Fox has a big senior class of 12 who will lead the War Eagles in their hunt to return to region championship contention.
"If we can stay healthy, this group has worked — same old thing everybody else says — this group has worked really, really hard," Fox said. "It's been the best summer we've had in a long time as far as our kids coming in here, and they've had great attitudes. Our older kids coach our younger kids. It's a really good group to be around, and the attitude is as good as it's been. Hopefully that translates to some more success this season."
A lot of the names Fox will be counting on are familiar ones, led by leading rushers Cameron Davis and Ian Stroman in the backfield. The duo combined for 2,560 yards and 34 touchdowns on the ground a year ago, and with Davis at quarterback and Stroman at tailback the expectations are even higher this year.
"I hate to say it, but we're looking for more out of them," Fox said. "We're kind of changing it up a bit offensively. We're spreading it out. I know everybody's going to have a heart attack when they come watch our football games, because we're spreading it out a lot more than we ever have."
Davis will have a familiar group of receivers to throw to. Chris Kitchings and CJ Bell both came over from the basketball team and joined the team last year, and Fox said they were just out there being athletes on the field. With a year under their belts, Fox has seen them flip the switch and start playing like football players. They'll be on the outside, and Mekhi Williams will be in the slot.
It's a skill position group that Fox said is probably as good as Wagener-Salley has had in a long time, and they'll rely on a veteran offensive line to create space. Dalton Creel, Jawaine Gleaton and Damarion Williams are seniors who have played a lot of snaps together, and they're joined up front by second-year junior Brandon Pontoon and sophomore Nathan Delgado.
The defense hit some rough patches a year ago, so Fox and his staff are scaling things back a bit to give their defenders a better chance to be where they need to be.
"We felt like maybe in the past we've been a bit too complicated sometimes, so we're trying to simplify and make it easy for our kids to understand to where they're not thinking, they're just running to the football," Fox said.
