Photo courtesy Ian Cooper
Last year start through three games:
Varsity: 0-3
Junior Varsity: 1-2
Last year finish:
Varsity: Missed playoffs
Junior Varsity: Missed playoffs
Players to watch
WR Anythony Powless
QB Ben Hall
WR Ben Crocock
OL/DL Matt Tait
Varsity
Brantford Bisons coach Dan Padmore has been with team for 4 years as varsity head coach and 14 years total with the organization but even he didnāt see last yearās one-win season coming.
āItās not at all what I envisioned but we did not have a full roster to work with. We were in every game but ran out of juice having to go both ways all game,ā he said.
This year, however, Padmore says there is depth on both sides of the ball.
At quarterback, Ben Hall and Mike Knevel are starter material and making the move to varsity is last yearās leading OVFL junior varsity receiver Anthony Powless.
Hall threw for 1966 yards last season with the JV team with 11 touchdowns and 11 picks. He averaged 16.8 yards per attempt and finished the season with a 75.2 passer rating.
Powless had 939 yards come by way of his hands and feet alone. He had 6 touchdowns on 41 receptions and averaged 22.9 yards per reception.
Another big cog on offense is Dalton Laughlin, a returning 6ā6ā offensive lineman who Padmore expects to protect his skills players.
The Bisons start the season at home against London, a game Padmore says will be good, to an extent, for the team even if they lose.
āIt will be a challenge but I do see a lot of good things coming out of this game, win or not. This game will not say who we are as a team this year, but I do believe some eyes will be opened,ā he said.
Team president Don Macdonald fully endorses the coaching staff and says theyāll be great for the players.
āWe have excellent head coaches at all levels and they all have solid staffsā¦We expect our youngsters are going to learn a lot about football and they will have every opportunity to improve as student athletes,ā he said. āBeyond that, we believe all our teams are capable of bringing home championshipsā
Junior Varsity
Junior varsity head coach Ilyas Zylstra says he and the rest of the Bison coaching staff have been working all off-season to reverse the teamās fortunes after they barely missed the playoffs last year.
Zylstra says last yearās teamās was composed of great individual players that lacked team chemistry. His impression of this yearās team, composed of all but one returning player, was that they were smaller physically but, thanks to more team functions, are bonding better.
āThis is a team sport not an individual sport,ā he added. āSo I think if we can get them on that page right from the get go weāre going to be in good shape for when the season starts.ā
According to the coach, the smallness spreads from the secondary to receivers and even the offensive and defensive lines. But Zyltra maintains that what they lack in bigs, they make up for in mobility, speed and athleticism across the board.
The only player returning to the Bisonsā JV team this year is outside linebacker Shane Pasek. He started last year as a rookie and was a leader on the team.
Also on defense, Zylstra says lineman Matt Tait, a two-way city all-star last year is a nice piece for them.
āHeās going to be big for us on both sides of the ball if we get to use him that much, if he doesnāt get drained,ā he said.
Zylstra says thereās a lot to like on offense as well. The coach himself having enormous experience as a wide receivers coach, including a 5-year stint with Team Ontario, is impressed by Grade 9-er Ben Crocock.
Crocock, who goes to the same high school as starting quarterback Austin Sault, is a track athlete and the second fastest kid in Brantford. The coach says Crocock has good timing on his jumps, nice hands and runs his routes well.
The fastest kid in Brantford, Zylstra says, is Bisonsā running back Tristan Almas.
āThose two guys on offense are going to be speed demons for us,ā Zylstra said.
London will be in town to face the Bisons game one. Zylstra says his team has already gotten an early jump on the Falcons by watching game tape from last year and studying their tendencies.
He says London is āalways, always, alwaysā a tough game and says it could mean a lot down the road.
āWeāre definitely trying to get our kids prepared for this game because we feel that London could potentially be our toughest game of the year,ā he said. āSo we expect nothing less than hard-nosed football. .. their front seven is probably going to be very good so we feel the battle in the trenches are going to be very important for this first game.ā
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