LHS begins season with question marks

SM North at LHS

When: 7 tonight

Where: Lawrence High

All of those seasons at Haskell Stadium were nice, but the way Lawrence High senior running back Tyrae Jenkins sees things, the stakes are higher now.

When the Lions play host to the Shawnee Mission North Indians in the season opener at 7 tonight, they’ll do so by taking their first snaps in their new, on-campus stadium. Although the finished version of the new venue remains a few weeks out, Jenkins said the thought of taking the field for the first time got his blood pumping.

“To have your home field on your campus, nothing’s more special than that,” Jenkins said.

The stadium, which currently has no official name, is not the only fresh face inherited by the LHS program this season. New numbers have taken the places of veterans, and the Lions enter 2009 as a team with many unknowns.

“Like a lot of teams in the state of Kansas, we have some question marks,” LHS coach Dirk Wedd said. “And that’s why getting this first game under our belts is so important, so we can see where we’re at and see what we have. We have a lot of kids who had great summers, now we just need to see how many football players we have.”

While the bulk of the Lions’ lineup will be starting for the first time, LHS returns a handful of starters from last year’s playoff qualifier and a few others with notable varsity experience.

That fact is not lost on the Lions, but the players who have been thrust into leadership roles this season — whether by seniority or experience — are confident heading into the opener.

“For the most part, we’re ready,” senior Taylor Coleman said. “Mentally, it’s there. It’s exciting, and we want to play. Now we just have to go out and do it.”

While preseason drills provided Wedd and the Lions with a peek at where they stand, it did little to establish a clear-cut quarterback to step in to replace two-year starter Clint Pinnick, who was lost to graduation. Instead, Wedd will go with a two-quarterback system for the opener, calling upon senior Chase Billings and junior Chris Gaston to take the snaps depending on where the Lions are positioned on the field.

While the two-QB system isn’t something Wedd is crazy about using, he does like the fact that it gives both players the opportunity to establish themselves as “the guy.”

“We’re just trying to fit the offense to both of them to see which guy steps up,” Wedd said. “One does one thing better than the other, and it’s just a matter of trying to match up their strengths. They’ll both get the opportunity to show us what they can do. Sometimes on Friday night, under the lights, one guy will jump ahead of the other.”

Like always, a large part of the LHS game plan will focus on the offense. Not because of the team’s explosive potential but because of Wedd’s desire to control the tempo.

“Definitely,” Jenkins said. “That’s what we really want to do, move the chains and keep their offense off the field.”

SM North features a multi-dimensional attack, which includes senior running back Joe Haas and senior Arthur Rucker. Rucker, a starter at quarterback since his sophomore season, figures to factor into other areas of the offense.

In all, the Indians return more than half of their starters from last year’s 3-6 squad, something that had a stranglehold on Wedd’s attention.

“They’re an old team now,” Wedd said of SMN. “This is the group they started to mold two years ago when a lot of these guys were sophomores. Their passing game really worries me because we haven’t seen that. Somehow, we have to control the football to limit their opportunities.”