Media Day impressions: Part 1
The second annual GamedayMagazine.com Media Day was held July 29 at Joe's Pizzaria in Sterling. The event featured 20 area high school football coaches offering opening statements about their teams and fielding questions from the media.
Nine of those coaches were from Loudoun schools and obviously were the focus of mine and Loudoun Times-Mirror sports reporter Jason S. Rufner's attention.
We are in the process of breaking down the audio recordings from the event and will provide some highlights as we do so. I'll start it up with two Leesburg schools -- Heritage and Loudoun County.
First off, it was great to learn Pride defensive coordinator Jason 'Choppy' Burke is doing well after suffering a mild heart attack a few weeks ago. Head coach Wes Driskill said luckily they caught everything in time and that Choppy was back out at a Pride camp two weeks later.
Choppy was eating right and losing weight prior to the attack but his doctor told him he just got a bad piece of genetic pie in there. Choppy is also the boys' lacrosse coach at Heritage and is a pleasure to work with from a media perspective. His players seem to love him as well.
Heritage tied a school record with a 7-3 mark in 2007. They missed the playoffs by the slightest of margins after starting the season slow due in large part due to injuries (top two QBs were out early in '07). Driskill stated missing the playoffs 'eats at us' and added when you get that close 'you have to be hungry or you shouldn't come back'.
Driskill said they respect every team in the Dulles District and will not take anyone lightly this fall. But the Pride expects to be in the mix for the district championship and feel they have a good chance to improve upon last year's record.
Returning RB/DB Ross Madison should be an impact player in the district again this year. Driskill said Madison has had a tremendous offseason and really increased his strength.
I assumed returning senior Zach Gordon was the clear-cut choice at QB this year after playing well when Kyle Nelson was injured last season. Driskill envisions a good competition at QB with 'very impressive' freshman Brian Rody also in the mix. He also feels the Pride will 'have one of the biggest and strongest offensive lines we've ever had this year'.
Driskill spoke fondly of a number of players (Russell East and David McCarthy to name a couple) and said they had more kids in the weight room this offseason than ever before. He credited coach David Bishop and some other assistants for running the offseason program.
Bishop also has some web skills. He and Anthony Long have done nice work with the Pride football page on the school website. Check it out when you get a chance but do consider turning down the volume on your computer a tad. I almost woke my wife up when I visited the site one late evening.
Let's move on to the Loudoun County Raiders and second-year coach Todd Hill.
The Raiders return 15 starters, including 4 of 5 on the OL. There is a three-way scramble at QB with Joe Bushrod leading them into August camp. Bushrod played WR and QB last year. Austin Campbell and Andrew Messina will vie for the spot also.
Hill, who led LC to wins in two of their last three games in 2007 after a long winless drought, plans to open up the offense much more this season after just teaching the basics in his first campaign. The Raiders will institute more spread offense with Hill confident in a WR core that goes up to nine deep. He used the old adage 'grass basketball' to describe the offense.
Chase Williams returns for his junior year. The dynamic LB/TE is up to 6-3, 230 and has increased his speed -- Hill said he ran a 4.7 in the 40. Williams, the son of former Washington Redskins and current Jacksonville Jaguars defensive coordinator, is getting bombarded with college interest. Schools like UCLA, Florida, South Carolina and Virginia Tech have been in contact. With his improved speed, Williams might also play some WR this fall.
Hill also raved about Teddy Orrison (6-3, 235). He'll play nose guard and offers a nice mix of strength and agility. Safety Tim McLister heads up a secondary unit that returns three starters.
It's clear that Hill is very pleased with the direction of the program. "We saw some success late last season when we won two of our last three games and that has definitely carried over into the offseason. I think there is a renewed excitement in the program. I really think that is going to help us get off to a good start this year."
Kudos to Andy Hayes and his Gameday crew for putting on the event. And to Joe's for dishing out some tasty pizza.