Patriots want to finish in 2018

If regulation prep football games were 36 minutes long and not 48, last season could have been a great year for the Ellender Memorial Patriots.

But the rules didn’t change, so the Patriots fell flat — often in the final 10 minutes. They struggled to just two wins and eight defeats — a problem that coach David McCormick vows to fix in 2018.

McCormick said Ellender has worked tirelessly throughout the summer and in the early fall to condition, stating repeatedly that the failures of last season will not be part of the team’s future plans.

McCormick said he thinks the team had good fight, but just simply gassed out late in games. To fix that, the team’s entire offseason program has been centered on one theme: Finish.

“Last year, we’d just lose our steam,” McCormick said. “You can look at the record and everything, but it doesn’t tell the full story. So many of those games were close at halftime or one-possession games in the third quarter or fourth quarter — games where if something goes our way, we can have had a different result. So the kids are working on finishing and taking that bull by the horns and trying to win a few more of those close ones this time.”

Talent helps, too.

Ellender has plenty of that.

Offensively, the Patriots may utilize a freshman at quarterback with Ryan Williams quickly emerging as a standout — a name that will likely be heard dozens of times in these pages over the next several years.

McCormick said Williams is handling himself better than his youth would indicate. In the team’s scrimmage against Riverside Academy, the freshman scored a touchdown and made several quality plays.

But McCormick said the Patriots will also look to heavily utilize the talents of halfbacks Justin Navy and Jahon Johnson — a pair of juniors — to control the clock.

Ellender also has talented receivers on the edge — a group led by Courtenay Francis.

“We like our skill again,” McCormick said. “We have a lot of guys who can do some explosive things with the football. The challenge is going to be scheming to put them in positions to succeed and blocking well enough to let them have holes to run or to get down the field far enough to make a difference to get in that space.”

McCormick also applauded the work of new Ellender offensive line coach David-Michael Carrell, adding that he’s got the Patriots’ big guys banding together better than in previous years.

“Those offensive linemen guys are their own little unit. They like to be in their own world almost,” McCormick said. “Coach Carrell has come in and has really united those guys and built that camaraderie in them. That’s been great to see.”

Defensively, the Patriots have to replace a couple key departures, but McCormick said he likes what he’s seen from his unit so far in the fall.

Junior defensive lineman Jaydon Lyons has the capability to be both a rush-end off the edges in the passing game and also a bull-rush run-stopper in the running game for Ellender’s defense.

In the secondary, a lot of the team’s key offensive playmakers will pitch in, as will Armaj Harvey, who capped off a successful fall camp with an interception against Riverside Academy.

“I like the way those guys have attacked,” McCormick said. “We have some things we have to work on before the season, but their energy has been good and they’ve done a good job moving to the football.”

The margin for error for Ellender is small and even without 2017’s issues, conditioning would have had to be a huge emphasis for this team.

McCormick said numbers at Ellender are down and the team has far fewer players this year than they have in years past.

That will put an onus on the team’s core group of standouts to play both ways. It also means that the team must stay healthy to overcome the course of the 10-game schedule.

“It’s just a different world today,” McCormick said. “Our numbers are down and I know we’re not the only ones with these problems. When I was a kid, if I wanted to be Johnny Unitas, I’d get out there and play. Today, there are these video games or this social media or whatever else to take everyone’s attention away. It drives me nuts, but it is what it is. We have who we have and we’re excited to get going with this group of guys.”

Ellender football

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