Spring high school football: ‘It’s not normal’ but Oak Ridge aims to win out
Eric Cavaliere is as giddy as anyone about the prospects of a spring football schedule, but he brings up a good point in broad perspective as a man who led The Bee’s top-ranked team at the end of the 2019 season and steers the preseason spring No. 1 group now.
“It’ll feel scary when it feels normal, in a good way,” the longtime Oak Ridge Trojans coach said. “I don’t want any of this to feel normal, so why normalize it? It’s not normal. It’s a pandemic, and all the precautions are what we have to do to make it work. It’s been a long wait — dismal.”
The norm now includes weekly testing of players and coaches, limited fans allowed at games (immediate families), and the empty look and feel of not having students, a band, cheer squads and more that make a Friday fall scene in El Dorado Hills as good as it gets in the Sac-Joaquin Section. Still, it’s better than none of those things and no games.
Oak Ridge is playing Sierra Foothill League opponents in a six-game stretch that will not include a postseason. So, how to approach the season? At full charge, the coach said, as Cavaliere’s practice session last week was active, detailed and spirited.
The intent is to win, as long as it’s a game, and these games count. The fun starts Saturday at rival Folsom at 6 p.m.
“We’ll bring our own atmosphere,” Cavaliere said of home and road games in player enthusiasm alone. “The goal this spring isn’t any different than it’s always be. We’re not calling these glorified scrimmages. We’re here to play football, to put the best product on the field and to play as well as we can. We have never coached for next year or the following season. We coach for now.”
Oak Ridge had a ton to play for last fall: a chance to defend its Division I section championship, to play in another CIF D-I Northern California Regional final and to compete for CIF state honors. The Trojans returned a wealth of talent from the 2019 team, including Bee Player of the Year Justin Lamson, now competing for the starting quarterback job at Syracuse as an early Orange enrollee, and a host of tough defenders.
“The team we had coming back, all that experience, it was the best I’ve had, and if there was a group that was going to get to a state final, it was this one,” Cavaliere said.
The Trojans are led at quarterback by sophomore Drew Cowart, who has a superb quarterback coach in Mark Watson, the one-time Trojans head coach. One target will be Brandon Barthel, also a good defender in the secondary and looking bigger with 25 added pounds since 2019. Another receiver is tight end Ryan Enney, also a terrific linebacker. Oak Ridge is anchored on defense by Fresno State-commit Hunter Nabors.
“The chemistry here is the main thing,” Nabors said. “It’s great to play football again.”
Said Enney, “Oak Ridge football is about tradition. We take it seriously. I grew up with a lot of these guys.”