Season preview: Kenston goes old school with new coaching staff

Kenston has the oldest new coaching staff in the Chagrin Valley Conference.

Roger Vasey replaces Rick Adams this season as head coach and is hoping to bring Kenston back to its roots. He should know a lot about Kenston’s roots; he was an assistant coach on both state runner-up teams in 1986 and 1995.

And it just so happens two of his assistant coaches, Paul Koballa and Mike Knepp were the head coaches on those two dominant Bomber teams. Vasey has a simple plan for making the Bombers a powerhouse again: get back to Kenston’s roots.

“We’ve got a veteran staff,” Vasey said. “We really want to tap into what we think made Kenston a special program over the years, and that was our ability to play very physical football.”

Kenston has traditionally been very good at two things — stopping the run and running the football. Kenston hasn’t been that good at either recently. The offense has undergone a bit of an identity crisis with different spread and pass-happy offenses being tried. And the defense switched to a 3-3 stack, which didn’t prove particularly successful.

Don’t think Kenston, however, is going all the way back to 1985 to find an offense. Rather the Bombers will come out in a base I-formation, but will be mixing in the shotgun, spread formations that Kenston employed the last few years.

“One of the strengths on this team is that we have skill players that can play multiple formations,” he said. “We’ll be in shotgun a fairly high percentage of the time, but we’re going to try to be very physical as well. As we’ve told the kids at the outset, ‘just because we’re in the shotgun, doesn’t mean were going to be a finesse football team.’”

The shotgun formations have been good to the Bombers’ passing game, with school records being set and broken recently. Vasey’s job is to find a balance between the recent potent passing attacks and the potent running attacks of yesterday. One major change this year is that the Bombers will huddle up.

“We are still going to play fast,” Vasey said about switching from a no-huddle offense.

As noted earlier, the Bombers will be switching back to a four-man defensive front. Vasey hopes this will help make his team more physical, and, based on the two scrimmages, Vasey said it appears the Bombers are already more physical. While scores in scrimmages don’t really matter, Kenston was able to out physical Garfield Heights, 7-6.

Not only does Kenston have a new coaching staff, but it has an almost entirely new set of starting players. Only three starters remain from last season’s 6-4 team (4-2 in the CVC). Kenston has gotten out of the gates slowly the past few season. Unfortunately, the Bombers can’t afford to start slowly because there are not enough playoff points in the CVC for Division II Kenston.

This is a main reason why Kenston exclusively schedules Division I and II football teams for non-conference games. There are no Division II programs in the CVC besides Kenston now that West Geauga has dropped down to Division III.

Last season, Kenston lost to both Chardon and Nordonia before the CVC schedule even kicked off. Even if the Bombers ran the table in the CVC, they might not make the playoffs. Kenston again plays the non-conference trio of Kent Roosevelt, Chardon and Nordonia.

If Kenston wants a shot at the Division II playoffs, it has to win two of those non-conference games. The Bombers kick the season off at Division II Kent Roosevelt this Friday.. The Bombers won last year’s meeting 35-14 and should be the favorites to win this year.

With so many changes occurring for the Bombers, it’s hard to predict how good they will be. But if they focus on being physical and playing strong defense, they should be competitive in every game. We’ll find out a lot more about the old, new Bombers this Friday.

Key losses:

• Brett Tevepaugh - Why this record-setting quarterback only started one season for the Bombers is a huge mystery. He is the best QB the Bombers ever saw. In the one season he started at QB, he threw for a school-record 1,619 yards and 16 touchdowns. He had just 2 interceptions and an impressive 117.5 QB rating. It’s no surprise, however, that Tevepaugh was so good. He broke his older brother Ryan’s school records. Tevepaugh was also a multi-year starter at defensive back.
• John Behm - A big reason why Tevepaugh was able to set records was because of the play of this receiver. He led the team with 551 yards receiving and four touchdowns. The Davidson College recruit was also a stout linebacker, who led the team with 81 tackles.
• Dreadless Stubbs - The other big reason why Kenston had a potent passing attack was this big receiver. The Mercyhurst College recruit had 448 yards receiving and 2 touchdowns.
• Chris Meyer - The big defensive end will be playing football for the University of Findlay this fall. He had 56 tackles and 11 sacks. It’s hard to replace that kind of production from a defensive lineman.
• Jay McClellan - The first-team All CVC guard will be missed. It will be hard to be more physical along the offensive line without the 6′1, 292-lb. road grader.
• Brad Sellers - The multi-year starter at offensive tackle will be sorely missed as well.

Rising stars:

• Jimmy Tomcufclk - The Bombers are high on the junior running back. He has gotten a bit bigger in the off season and will be the key to Kenston’s more physical attack. He only had 77 yards rushing last year and is still a big unknown, but the coaches think he can deliver. Vasey said the 5′8, 170-lb. tailback is the fastest and strongest Bomber.
• Dan Sciortino - This junior has the unenviable job of replacing Tevepaugh at QB. The coaches think he can be a good one, however.
• Tory Treu - One of the returning Kenston starters. He will anchor both lines and is very active at the defensive tackle position. He should shine with a four man front this year.