[FBALL]

I like the attitude of this team much better than last years. The skill players are there. They need some kids to step up on the line. My personal feeling is they will. I think 7-3 or 6-4 are likely for this year. I hope though, that they exceed my expectations.

[ryanparker]

You very well be correct in your prediction. A Gross and Clark only come around once every 20 years or so. Russell has been blessed over the past 10 years to have numerous backs that ran the ball very well. Russell won the big games on the line as you indicate. Don't be a bit surprised to see several backs playing on the line this year. The Russell offense depends on how good the line play is.

I think Russell will win more games than we think. I have a good feeling that all the cancer has been removed from the team and we won't see it back. A bad attitude can ruin a team. The 2008 team had as much talent as any Russell team in the past ten years. The problem was they had no positive leadership on the field. Enough said.

Now heart and a positve attitude can make a good team play better than they are. I for one do not feel that the 2005 team was the best team in the past ten years. I think the 2002 team was the best and the 2004 team was right behind them. Only problem was that Belfry and Breathitt had good teams those years that played great.

Go get em DEVILS.:Wave:

Great post.

Here are the positions I wonder about right now. I don't know who they have planned for these: Right Guard, Right Tackle, Tight End on offense. Tackles and Secondary on defense. Anybody know who has been working at these positions?

[DevilDomination]

Great post.

Here are the positions I wonder about right now. I don't know who they have planned for these: Right Guard, Right Tackle, Tight End on offense. Tackles and Secondary on defense. Anybody know who has been working at these positions?

Right Guard- Spencer Hutchinson
Right Tackle- Zach Smith
Tight End- Drake DeHoff and Justin Davidson

D Tackles- Trenton Peterman and Zach Smith
Secondary- Max Rogers, Justin Davidson, Patrick Cooper, Logan Dehoff, Jesse White

I believe these to be the people the coaches have been looking at so far and look for these to be tested thursday evening when they have a short scrimmage

[ryanparker]

Right Guard- Spencer Hutchinson
Right Tackle- Zach Smith
Tight End- Drake DeHoff and Justin Davidson

D Tackles- Trenton Peterman and Zach Smith
Secondary- Max Rogers, Justin Davidson, Patrick Cooper, Logan Dehoff, Jesse White

I believe these to be the people the coaches have been looking at so far and look for these to be tested thursday evening when they have a short scrimmage

Well...you threw me there because I figured Spencer Hutchinson was going to be playing center and Zach Smith would be at left tackle where he played last year. Who is the center and left tackle then?

The secondary you listed has the potential to be surprisingly good. I haven't seen the 2 sophomores play football yet (only seen them play basketball), but they look like they are big and athletic enough to deliver some hits back there. I hope they play with confidence.

[serious?]

I expect the Devils to be better than people think. They have great tradition and a great staff.

[DevilDomination]

none of these are definite but as of now left tackle is Trenton Peterman and center is Lee Marr. I believe zach smith was moved because they will need experience on the strong side especially

[pitchfork]

The Devils will surprise some people this year. This Senior class has talent and has only lost a few games in the last three years. But moving Hutchinson from center will be a mistake. If at all move him to left tackle and put Marr at center.
Ends: Rogers, Davidson, Tackles: Hutchinson , Peterman, Smih, Guards: Smith, Evans, Spradlin, Center: Hutchinson, Massey That should be the line. If you cannot block or won' block why be a starter in the line??????? No one knows till after the Maroon & White game and the Spring Valley scrimmage.

[FBALL]

How is the kicking game looking?

[DevilDomination]

paul spradlin broke his hand at practice the other day

[red_devils_rule]

The kids will step up. It's the head coaching that has been at fault the past 2 years.

lol

[red_devils_rule]

paul spradlin broke his hand at practice the other day

it was his medatosel he will be able to play tho!!!!!

[pitchfork]

when is then Maroon & White game and who got picked for this years team Captains. Great that Spradlin will still get to play. He will contribute alot this year. Some Soph will get some significant playing time. I look for the devils to surprise many this year.:devilflam:devilflam:devilflam

[ryanparker]

I see the 2009 roster is up on the Russell football website at http://www.russell-ind.k12.ky.us/reddevi...roster.htm.

First off, what happened to Steven Stapleton? He is listed as injured. Is he out for the year? If so, that's too bad as he played really well at LB last year.

Judging from what I've heard and expected, here is how things will probably look:

QB - Brandon Sparks
RB - Travis Jones, Jesse White
FB - Will Rice
C - Lee Marr
LG - Kamron Smith
LT - Trenton Peterman
RG - Spencer Hutchinson
RT - Zach Smith
TE - Drake Dehoff
E - Max Rogers

NG - Spencer Hutchinson
DT - Trenton Peterman
DT - Zach Smith
DE - Travis Jones
DE - Drake Dehoff
LB - Will Rice
LB - Kamron Smith
S - Max Rogers
S - Justin Davidson (???)
CB - Jesse White
CB - Logan Dehoff, Patrick Cooper, (???)

K/P - Tanner Locey

Others I would expect to get significant playing time are Travis Edwards, Paul Spradlin, Joel Korzep, and Bruce Bates. A new face I noticed on the roster is basketball player Nathan Taylor. He plays basketball with a lot of emotion and is fun to watch. If he brings that same fire to the football field, he might contribute. I'm probably missing some names and wrong on a few positions, but this is who I know of.

It looks like there's only about 40 guys on the roster this year. I think we're going to see more guys playing both ways than we've ever seen. I hope they are in shape.

So correct me if I'm wrong...what do you think?

[FBALL]

Stapleton is out for the season with a bad shoulder. That's really a shame. He would have had a really good year and been one of the leaders on defense.

Only 40 players on the roster is precisely the reason for restructuring the JFL. We have had around 12 or so kids sign up in the 11-13 year old group that have not played before or quit within the last couple of years and have now come back. Yes we lost a couple of good players but we have picked up many more and the kids are excited to be playing football.

Ryan, those projected lineups look pretty close to what I would expect them to be. Another few names that I would expect to add depth on the line are Fyffe, Massie and Evans.

[FBALL]

The maroon/white game is Thursday night @ 7:00pm. We should get a good idea of who will be at each position then.

[devilhorns05]

Nathan Taylor I didnt know he was playing football this year, good athlete should be a good fit at db.

[RedDevil1981]

Any obvious starters come out of last nights "meet the devils" scrimmage? Any surprises? Any obvious QB choice after the scrimmage?

[RedDevil1981]

It will be interesting to see how they do in the scrimmage game Saturday. When you evenly split the teams up like on Thursday it makes it tough to see how each individual will do against another team and playing with the complete set of starters.

[RedDevil1981]

Is the Davidson kid really 6'5"? He looks big for a Sophmore but I've heard people talk like he was more like 6'3".

[RedDevil1981]

What happened to Kevin Peterman this year - I thougt he would be a starter this year and I didn't see him on the roster?

[McGlone05]

Any news about the maroon and white game? I heard it was a good eye view of the players and how they will look this season.

[ryanparker]

I didn't think you could really tell a whole lot with the 1st team being split on different sides of the ball. Tomorrow's scrimmage against Spring Valley should reveal more of what Russell will be able to do this year. Here are the only thoughts I can muster based on what I saw, though:

The passing game didn't look like anything to write home about, although Travis Jones did make a nice catch on a ball thrown up for grabs.

Jones seemed to be the best of the runners and should be the main guy this year. I hope he is in shape, because I imagine he is going to have to play most snaps on both sides of the ball. This is true of several other guys as well, including Will Rice and Kamron Smith. The roster only appears to include 30-some players.

The kicking game looks to be OK. Locey looked good (at least in practice scenarios) kicking field goals. Nathan Taylor had a nice punt as well.

I think Joel Korzep will be an excellent defensive player this year.

The 2 sophomores, Dehoff and Davidson, have all of the physical tools to be great players. If they get more aggressive coming up from the secondary, they have the potential to really be a force and lay some big hits on opponents this year. I'd like to see them in on offense as well. This, of course, depends on how they progress, though.

Overall, no one really stands out on the team as being "the star". No one has physical tools that are far and away above the rest. They just have a bunch of pretty solid players. For Russell, winning this year is truly going to have be a team effort. They're going to have to execute to perfection.

As I said, though, we'll see how it goes tomorrow against Spring Valley.

[RedDevil1981]

Thanks for the summary. I hope the team pulls together and far exceeds the critics calling for a below average year. They need to take one week at a time and and learn to pull together and work even harder if things get rough.

[ryanparker]

The Spring Valley scrimmage is over and here is what I think now about this year's Russell team:

First, Spring Valley had a decent looking team. For the most part, they appeared to be bigger and stronger than Russell. That's probably going to be a common theme this season, though. Spring Valley isn't going to win the West Virginia state title or anything, but they'll likely be competitive with the tough schedule they play.

Russell's first team defense did a pretty good job. Again, I think their biggest weakness is going to be when teams line it up and run it right between the tackles. They just don't have the size and strength to contend with this. Anything else and there is a chance they can handle it, because the linebackers are very good at pursuing and making stops. They are unquestionably the strength of this defense. Russell gave up a few chunks of yards here and there, but Spring Valley only managed to score against them once with a long run on one of their last drives of the scrimmage. Spring Valley didn't look like they had much of a passing game, so the pass defense wasn't really tested. All in all, I think Russell's defense will determine the type of season it's going to be. It wasn't a bad performance today.

On the other hand, Russell's first team offense barely moved the ball at all. What seems to be the signature play of the Russell offense, the sweep to the right side, went absolutely nowhere. The only play that worked more often than not was the quick hitter up the middle to Rice. He went for big yardage a few times. I have a feeling he is going to have to do a lot this year on both sides of the ball for this team to be successful. The quarterback, sophomore Logan Dehoff, was under too much pressure on the few pass plays they tried to make a fair assessment. Overall, the line has got to get better. They didn't even come close to scoring against Spring Valley.

The kicking game looked iffy as they had a bad snap on one attempt and shanked another. I didn't stick around to see the punts.

The good news is that the Russell JV squad scored against the Spring Valley JV squad. They did a good job and the future looks good for the Russell program. As I said, though, I think the present is going to rely on the Russell defense as it doesn't look like the offense is going to be very explosive. There's a lot of room for improvement.

[GOREDDEVILS]

Nice recap of the Spring Valley scrimmage ryanparker.

[flavorflav]

You very well be correct in your prediction. A Gross and Clark only come around once every 20 years or so. Russell has been blessed over the past 10 years to have numerous backs that ran the ball very well. Russell won the big games on the line as you indicate. Don't be a bit surprised to see several backs playing on the line this year. The Russell offense depends on how good the line play is.

I think Russell will win more games than we think. I have a good feeling that all the cancer has been removed from the team and we won't see it back. A bad attitude can ruin a team. The 2008 team had as much talent as any Russell team in the past ten years. The problem was they had no positive leadership on the field. Enough said.

Now heart and a positve attitude can make a good team play better than they are. I for one do not feel that the 2005 team was the best team in the past ten years. I think the 2002 team was the best and the 2004 team was right behind them. Only problem was that Belfry and Breathitt had good teams those years that played great.

Go get em DEVILS.:Wave:

I think 02 and 04 were great as well...to be honest I think if the 99 team had a quarterback they might have been just as good as the others, but they had to convert a senior FB to QB and 2 of their losses were to state champions, Parkersburg Big Reds and Boyle County..not shabby teams

[pagan]

I think 02 and 04 were great as well...to be honest I think if the 99 team had a quarterback they might have been just as good as the others, but they had to convert a senior FB to QB and 2 of their losses were to state champions, Parkersburg Big Reds and Boyle County..not shabby teams

yeah the 99 team had some solid players and had a great offensive line. Defense was solid that year as well...top 10 against the run.