Football season is back for Kearns High School and the team is already hard at work. The cougars are hoping to make an even bigger impact than last years by taking on week by week and into the playoffs. As far as training and preparation goes, the entire team has definitely put some hard valuable effort towards the season. During the spring, they show up every morning to practice spring ball and do drills. They also show up four out of seven days of the week during the summer to work out in the weight room and practice, some of the players even do other sports such as wrestling and track. During the season they practice for 3 hours a day and even review strategy and other things occasionally after school.
They had crushing victories in their first few couple of games against West Jordan and Cottonwood. This years starting varsity quarterback, has immensely helped in these last couple Friday nights with several different touchdown passes. Our defensive team has also put some great effort in as well with keeping the other team away from the goal and being able to pick off some interceptions.
Coach Rickards, head of the football team, hopes to help the team build and improve on their mistakes. “I want an environment where they can make a mistake and get an answer for why they made that mistake,” Rickards said, “I love working with the guys and that’s probably another thing as well, we do so well because we are able to trust each other.”
Both the coaches and the team have high expectations for the season. Coach Rickards and Coach Garcia have worked the team hard these past few weeks in preparation for the upcoming 2017 playoffs. “He’s strict, Kearns high athletes said. “But it is manageable”. The coaches hold them up to high standards and have high expectations for the team to do well in their next upcoming games.
As winter approaches, so does the end of football season. Most of the team want to shoot big this year and go to regional games, the coach said they think of nothing other than what’s gonna help them be successful, and take each at a time.
The team so far has done well this season, not a lot of improvements are needed to be made as far as their performance goes this year, but they have done exceptionally well with running the ball and being able to get it to the quarterback. As we go into the last few weeks of football season, it’s pretty safe to say we will have a shot of going far in the playoffs.