Valley Media Day 2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank you Van.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
You know, it's a great time to be here, you know,
and when you start media days, you know that football
is right around the corner. And can't say enough about
these guys up here in our football program. We're excited
about this year. Team's really done a good job. I
think we've got about ninety eight percent participation in this
summer workouts. We've got in twenty five workouts, and these
guys have worked hard. I really excited about this season. Uh,

(00:24):
just about the jail that this team's got about them.
They really love to work. They come in every day ready,
fired up, ready to go. They want to get on
that field and they want to compete. So that's something
that's big for this group. You know, I say this
and I and we talked as a coaching staff. This
group of guys as a team really really really loves

(00:46):
to work. And you know, I've come up to the
field house. They called me, text.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Me and say, coach, can we come up to the
field and work.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
And I think we've got more guys in than the
eighteen years that I've been here that have really stepped
up and got extra work in on their own. So
that's a testament to the team. You know, coming off
of a five and five season where we felt like
three games we had we could have easily been eight
and two.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
You know, we lost two in overtime.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
You lose both of those games by one play, and
then the first game we blew a lead and didn't
finish the game. So that's what our off season has
been about. You know, we really want to finish this year.
Those things are something to build on you kind of
as a coach. You step back and you look and see,
you know, what can we do to do that? So
we really you know, our motto has been finished and
we're going to finish everything we do one hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
These guys have bought into that. Really excited about it.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
I'm excited by my coaching staff. They've done a great job.
Got a young, you know, kind of fairly young coaching staff,
but guys that really bought into working hard. Nobody realizes
how many hours it really takes. I think Coach Ross
was talking about it, and you know, when we're clocking
those hours, we're eighty ninety hours a week and they're
away from their family. You know, I want to say

(01:56):
thank you to those guys. They really worked hard. This
off season and the and going into the season. They
spend a lot of time away from their family, so
I want to thank them as well. Just to introduce
these guys, going from my left to right, we got
Jackson Miller number seventy.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
He'll be a junior.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
He has started the past two years, so that he'll
be going to his third year as a starter. He'll
play tackling, a little bit of center force, and probably guard.
We got Caden Former number seven. He's our starting quarterback.
I just can't say enough about this kid. Kid wants
to work, comes in studies, film all the time, gets
the extra reps, goes with his quarterback coach. You know,

(02:33):
anytime he can get on the field and work, he's there.
Really looking forward to having him a part of this team.
He's a he's a student of the game. We're gonna
give him some free range as far as running the
offense more this year. I think he can handle it.
He's a smart guy, smart quarterback. And then we got
Mason Yavar number zero. He'll play inside linebacker for it's
a little bit of offense. He'll be a sniffer force, tidy

(02:55):
end kind of deal. And he played a little bit
of running back as well. So, yeah, a tough kid.
You can see him. He loves the weight room, loves
to work out. He's really done that very well in
the off season. Uh put on some some muscle this
off season, so we're really looking forward to having him.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
And then we got Nikuelan Linsen.

Speaker 4 (03:12):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
He's an inside linebacker as well, defensive MVP last year
on the defense. Uh really got a knack for getting
to the football covers well. Uh just kind of the
leader of the defense. He's got a quick twitch. He
reads the offenses and you know, he knows, he knows
what to do, and he kind of gets us lined
up defensively. So these guys right here is just a

(03:33):
small portion of the group that we've got.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
You know, we've got some guys that have stepped up.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Brandez Easen Uh is gonna play a little safety and
running back for us. He's done a great job this
offseason getting hisself prepared to do that. And then you know,
going down the line, we've got Aiden Johnson at receiver
that's really stepped up, had a really good summers working hard.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Uh, Melchai McCullough.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Those guys on the offensive side of the ball that's
really doing well. And we're gonna have some young guys
that stepped up. I say young guys up front. Offensively,
they'll they'll be seniors, but they haven't got a lot
of reps on the field, but they've really stepped up
and learned the game this summer.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
So we're looking forward to it.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
And you know, we're gonna try to spread that thing
out a little bit and get the ball in space.
Offensively and defensively, we're gonna try to cause havoc. We're
we're three four defense and we're gonna bring pressure every play. Uh,
and we're gonna take risk and that that's you know,
we want to we want to disrupt the quarterback play.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
But those guys have really bought in up front, you know.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
And and and then the secondary, you know, you got
Cole House who's gonna play safety for us.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Has done a great job. Started as uh a tenth
grader last year. He'll be a junior.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Really smart, he's uh, you know, he's my DC son.
So he's got a knack for football. He he knows
football very well and he kind of helps on that
back end of things. Tino Linsen is another kid that
I want to brag on that has stepped up big
time this offseason. So you know, it just worked hard,
that's the main thing. And Brandon McCullough, those are names
you're gonna hear uh on Friday nights. That's really done

(05:00):
a good job for us and stepped up and we
look forward to that.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
All right, Did this time take any questions?

Speaker 5 (05:06):
Yeah, Coach. Last year, I know you had to replace
a lot of seniors from that twenty three playoff team.
This year you got a lot of returners, as you said,
so talk about the mindset and the mentality and that
difference going into a more experienced team than you had
last year.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Well, and I think, you know, looking back from last time,
last summer, this time, you know this time last summer,
you know, you look and see how you compared to that,
and I think we're way ahead of where we were then.
We were trying to get guys in that hadn't played
a lot, that had to fill in those roles and
they were kind of a.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
Little raw to it.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
So this year we've done a really good job preparing.
I think we've done a really good job on the
field this off season of preparing these guys to go
into Friday nights and know what to do. There's not
too much implementation we got to do now. We don't
install too much. Now we've almost got it all installed,
so we can jump in the fall camp and we
can roll and just kind of clean up some stuff
that we've been working on the summer. So that's big

(06:02):
having these guys back. You know, I think defensively, these
two guys here started as tenth graders. They've jumped up
into eleventh grade this year. But them having started all,
you know, every game last year inside linebacker, that's huge.
That's gonna be big for our defense and for those
two guys to be leading the defense and tackles and
the amount of tackles they're getting.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
You know, our front's doing.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
A well a good job to our defensive line and
so you know, those things are all going to play
in a factor of how successful we can be.

Speaker 6 (06:31):
Adam, what was that Glenwood game like last year? And
the reason I bring it up is, you know, coming
into this year, I mean, does that help it through
summer and early fall camp? Do you think that'll get
you guys through some drills? Do you think the kids
will be motivated.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, you know, you look back at that game and
we jumped up I think it was twenty one or
twenty six to nothing at halftime, and you come back
out in a little flat and I think we got
kind of complacent of what we was doing. Now, there's
some things that happened that we're out of our hands,
but we still we didn't finish, and you know, that's
kind of that's kind of what we've got to do. Uh,

(07:05):
And those are things we've got to finish on. We
got to finish games. And and then and that's a
teachable moment, and and the other two games in the season.
It just goes to show you how valuable each play is.
And I think that's what these guys have learned.

Speaker 5 (07:19):
Adam kind of similar But those three close games, what
what kind of needs to be the difference on the
field this year to come out on the winning side
of those games.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Well, and you know, I think, I think you've just
got to fight through some adversity. You know, people looking
at the outside, you know, from the outside end, you
don't see.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
What's happening on the field.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
If as a coach you see things that's going on
that you know, people don't understand. You look back at
the Elmore County game. We go in overtime at home
and my quarterback is banged up. I mean he's, you know, limping,
trying to trying to make it through the overtime and
he's like, coach, don't pull me out. Don't don't pull
me and you know, we riding and he got us

(07:56):
that far. And you know that's a test of that
kid's going on to play college football right now. And
you know, those those are things that people don't understand
happen in a game.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
You don't, you know, you kind.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
Of lose sight of Yeah, we did lose in overtime twice,
but there's things, factors that happened that if we change
one thing, we're right there.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
At eight and two.

Speaker 7 (08:14):
So, hey, coach, you had a scrimmage back in May.
So what kind of takeaways did you see from that game,
both defensively and offensively.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
You know, I think I think defensively, we flew around
to the football. I think we got to the football well.
I think we played pretty decent up front. We had
some things that we need to work on as far
as our defensive front was concerned, but those are things
we corrected in the summer and we've done better. I
think that's I love playing a spring game. I don't
want to see spring go away. I think it's a
time that we can really evaluate the younger guys before

(08:46):
you go into fall and know what you can do
over the summer. So, you know, I think that's big
for us. I think we saw what we can do.
I thought I could see that Cayden Foreman can can
recoverage his you know, and get the ball to receivers
and those types of things that you know, you didn't
really know going into the season because we only had
him three games last year. So those are things you

(09:07):
learn and you take off and then and you can
build on that in the summer and it just increases
your your chances.

Speaker 5 (09:14):
Coach, if we can get your players up behind the podium,
and then we'll feel you guys will stand up and
go behind the podium. We'll get one or two questions
for you guys. Cayen. We'll start with you as a
returning quarterback year two, going into your senior year. Talk
about some of the work you've put in individually and

(09:36):
as a team in the spring and the summer to
get ready for your senior season.

Speaker 8 (09:40):
Yes, sir, me and my guys who put in work
day and day out. We always at the field house
as the coach to get a lift in, always at
the field throwing routes on arege. You're doing anything to
get better. And these group of guys they got in
their mindset that want to win. We actually know what
we can do this year. We got a lot of
leaders going into this season.

Speaker 4 (10:04):
So this is for all of you coming off a
pretty decent season last year where you feel like it
could have been a lot better if just a couple
of things changed. What have you done in the off
season different this year than you did last year as
leadership and physicality to prepare for this season to have
a championship year.

Speaker 8 (10:25):
We just start working more, We start working harder, up
the intensity of our workouts, and we also increased leadership
around all areas of our team. Last year, we didn't
have a lot of leadership, not a lot of vocal
leaders on our team, so it made it really hard
of us to put this thing together en roll. So
this year we got a lot of leadership. We increase
the intensity of our workouts, which just work hard.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
We want it.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
Right I think last year. The biggest difference when this
year and last year is, like Kyden said, the leadership.
I think last year we really struggled leadership and then
those overtime losses. I think that's where we lostes. We
didn't have much leadership.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
We didn't have.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
Yeah, we shouldn't have much leadership. And our workouts this
year way more intense. We have a lot of guys
that are that will pick you up and we'll move
on to the next play. We have a lot of
guys rotating in and I think I just think we
have a lot more leadership and I think that's what's

(11:30):
going to help us to this year.

Speaker 9 (11:36):
I think our biggest Uh we're not downfall, but leadership.
We didn't have a lot of that last year. And
I feel like these team have more leadership and we lead,
we push each other to our best abilities, and uh,
we work out hard, go to the field, you know,
we just put each other.

Speaker 10 (12:00):
I feel like last year we were a very physical team,
but we weren't playing as a team. We were playing
very individual And in this off season we've met up
a lot together outside of practice and worked on the field,
worked out, just did team bonding. Exercises, and I believe
that since that we've did those team bonding exercise we'll

(12:20):
play much better as a team this year instead of
playing as an individual.

Speaker 7 (12:26):
Linton, Mine's question is for you. You had a stat in
pretty much at every category, So how are you hoping
to recreate that and maybe add onto those stats?

Speaker 9 (12:36):
Well, you know, I just I'm a team player. You know,
I really don't just focus on my stats. You know,
I just want to get the win, go to the playoffs. Yeah,