By Jim Mashek – Sporting Times
Max Chaney knows what he’s up against.
Few coaches will face scrutiny like the first-year
Franklin-Simpson coach, who went to a KHSAA championship game as a
senior lineman with the Wildcats all the way back in 1995.
Chaney succeeds Doug Preston as the Franklin-Simpson coach. The
Wildcats have had three head coaches (Chaney, Preston and Doug
Schlosser) since 1998. They return seven offensive starters and three
defensive starters from last year’s 7-6 team, a F-S squad that bounced
back from a disastrous 0-4 start.
“We try to schedule aggressively for the first weeks of the
season,” Chaney said. “With the COVID-19 pandemic we’ve had to make
some changes. We can’t play Battleground Academy (of Tennessee) in the
first week, and instead we’ll play at Russellville (on September 11).
“We’ve got to play a lot of kids both ways. With this short
practice time, we have to see what we have to work on in the early
going, and adjust from there.”
Franklin-Simpson played Johnson Central in three consecutive
KHSAA Class 4A championship games, winning two (2017, ’18) and losing
one (2016). Last year, the Wildcats trounced Russell County and Allen
County-Scottsville in the first two rounds of the 4A playoffs, but
they met their match on the road against Madisonville, falling 45-31.
“If you’d told me we’d score 31 points in any game,” Chaney
said,”I’d be pretty sure we’d have won.”
Franklin-Simpson returns starting quarterback Luke Richardson, a
third-year starter as a junior. The Wildcats are a running football
team — “we’re still gonna try to run the football,” Chaney said —
but Richardson was a steady performer last year, completing 41 of 81
passes for 779 yards and 11 touchdowns. The 6-foot-2, 210-pound
Richardson also handles the punting duties for the Wildcats.
The Wildcats lost their two leading rushers from last year,
Leandre Stutzman and Tedric Partinger, but junior wingback Omar
Harrison returns for Chaney’s squad. Harrison rushed for 524 yards and
six touchdowns, while Malik Carter, a fullback in Chaney’s Wing-T
offense, added 454 yards and seven TDs.
Andrew Ogles, a 6-2, 190-pound senior, is back at tight end.
Chaney likes to use him as a receiver on the goal line as a receiver.
On the offensive line, Franklin-Simpson returns two guards — junior
Kyrus Burr and sophomore Emilio Vasquez, a sturdy 5-9, 215-pound
sophomore.
Burr, a 5-11, 180-pound junior, also plays linebacker on defense
and led the WIldcats last season with 17 tackles for losses, including
a team-high 11 sacks. Ogles, meanwhile, had seven catches for 153
yards and three touchdowns.
Franklin-Simpson’s only other returning defensive starters are
senior Jakota Warfield, a 6-2, 230-pound lineman, and senior Ricky
Brownlee, a 5-11, 160-pound defensive back. Chaney will be looking
toward newcomers Landon Graves, a sophomore linebacker, and senior
defensive back Jesse Punzalan to fill critical roles on defense.
The WIldcats’ base defense is from the 3-3-5 “stack” look, while
on offense, Franklin-Simpson is a bit of a throwback with the wing-T
attack.
Franklin-Simpson only has seven games scheduled for the 2020
season, including the opener on September 11 at Russellville.
“I feel like we have some good young talent, especially in the
backfield,” Chaney said. “With kids going both ways, you’ve got to
ride the wave when you’ve got it.”
