By RYAN WALKER
HUNTERTOWN — Over 40 Fort Wayne area teams gathered its coaching staffs and players for high school football media day at the Empowered Sports Club Friday afternoon.
Teams had at least a head coach and up to eight players to answer questions about the upcoming season with official team practices beginning on July 31.
All three Wells County schools were represented by players wearing their jerseys, posing for photos, taking videos for media outlets, and talking with TV and print media about the season.
Here is what each school’s head coaches had to say about the 2023 season:
Bluffton
The Bluffton Tigers are coming off their first sectional championship in 34 years. Despite the long wait, the 2023 team is poised for bigger and better things returning all but two starters from last season.
Head coach Brent Kunkel said his team is ready to start team practice and that the state of the program has gotten a high level of participation throughout the summer.
Expectations will be high not only in the area after an 8-5 trophy season but the community. Kunkel made it clear to his team that what happened last year doesn’t make what they’re going to do this year automatically.
“The theme of the summer has been humility,” he said. “Coming into a day like today with all this attention (on media day) and everyone talking about, hey, you won a sectional last year, and you bring 20 guys back, there’s that thought of we’ve already done something or have already arrived. We’ve been fighting that because, yeah, 2022 was awesome, but 2023 we haven’t accomplished that stuff yet.”
The head coach also confirmed another question that perhaps will be the key to another good season, who will fill in the running back spot.
Sophomore Khamel Moore averaged 5.4 yards per attempt last season and will fill the role of Anthony Cruz, who was four yards shy of a 1,500-yard season on the ground alone.
The Tigers run the ball nearly three times as much as they do throwing it through the air, and Kunkel is excited to give those carries to Moore.
“We feel good because we bring five offense starters back on the offensive line with a couple of guys with reps as backups as well,” he said. “The kid that’s going to tilt the rock for us this year is Khamel Moore. He’s got ‘it,’ he’s very talented, and he’s a kid that even at the end of the year last year, if you look at the skill level, he was probably ahead of Anthony from a skill level standpoint.”
Norwell
Norwell is on the opposite side of Bluffton’s situation, as the Knights graduated eight starters/players with significant snaps in last year’s 10-2 season.
Of the graduated seniors, Norwell will need replace a quarterback, three of the team’s top rushers, and four college football signees.
Head coach Josh Gerber is in his eighth season at the helm of the program and understands the challenge ahead to piece a starting 11 puzzle for the season, but remains optimistic he still has talent behind some of the big names.
“We bring some guys back, not household names outside of our program, but they’re good kids, and they’ve worked hard. I think they’ve put themselves in a position to be successful. The challenge is going to be finding some leadership. Our juniors and seniors haven’t really had to provide a lot of leadership with the strong groups in front of them with the last two classes. These young guys are going to have to step up.”
Gerber shared that the quarterback position is a two-way battle between Alex Fojtik and Drew Graft, who have a combined five passing attempts in their varsity career.
The problem for the Knights is that Graft has been touring out of state with his summer travel baseball team and hasn’t been able to focus on football during the summer. Graft is the starting centerfielder and leadoff man on the baseball team and it a top 10 uncommitted prospect in the class of 2024 according to Prep Baseball Report.
Fojtik has gotten reps, however, in front of the head coach, but Gerber doesn’t “want to write Drew off” because of that.
The Knights were a run-first style offense last year, but the top rushers, Luke Graft, Drew Ringger, and quarterback Lleyton Bailey, need to be replaced.
The team will be trying out new players at the position along with Timothy Bonjour and Drew Graft when not behind center.
Gerber is perhaps most excited about Bonjour’s talent.
“Tim would have been a guy that would have got a lot of carries for a lot of people that we’ve played the last couple yeards, but he was behind a few good ones that have graduated,” Gerber said. “We think Tim’s poised to have a really good season.”
Bonjour ran for 438 yards on 52 attempts last season, good for 8.4 yards per carry. Some of the yardage came at the end of games, however, playing behind Luke Graft and Ringger.
Southern Wells
Southern Wells has a new look to the program, as three-year assistant coach Jeff Sprunger is taking over the reins as the head coach this season.
The former Whitko head coach was enthusiastic Friday talking about the Raider program. He joined in 2020 when the program decided to play a full junior varsity schedule instead of varsity and struggled for numbers. When former head coach Mike Roeder retired, Sprunger wanted to jump on the opportunity to coach the kids he had seen grow in his time.
“I felt like they (the kids) needed to have a little bit of consistency with a coach who knew who they were,” Sprunger said. “I’ve fallen in love with those boys and the underclassman that have supported them along the way and are going to be the anchor of the program for years to come. I really wanted to be a part of the program, and I think there’s potential there.”
Sprunger also shared that the turnout of players has increased from 27 to about 45 this season and that Southern Wells will be having a junior varsity team for the first time since he’s been involved with the program.
“It’s going to be huge,” he said. “Over the last two years, you saw some of those freshmen that aren’t developed enough to play a varsity game, and they might get a minute or two at the end of the game. To allow them to not just go to practice and just be practice warriors, but now to be able to go play a game on a Monday night is huge to build a program just so they get used to that game speed and to be able to compete and get confidence before they’re ready to take a varsity field.”
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