Football is back and this year’s Bear Sports Network Prep Kickoff game will take us to New Boston as the Chiefs of Huron High School host the Milford Mavericks. Both schools enter this one with new head coaches as the Chiefs have brought in legendary head coach Tom Hoover, and the Mavericks have promoted assistant coach Andrew Micovich to lead the team.
For Milford, they are coming off of their first winning season since 2013 with that Junior Wyatt Lesnew said “Right now we are 0-0 the season last year is behind us,” he went on to say. “If we want the momentum to keep moving it starts with our senior class, along with help from our Junior class to elevate the team.” Senior Danny Sternberg added that even though the team did have a winning record last year they need to leave the success and the failures of last season there because if they dwell on that they could come up short of their ultimate goal. “We lost a lot of production and leadership from our seniors last year, but they left us with a road map to success, he would add “These guys have followed that map to a T and even in some cases pushed the boundaries of that map, and that will hopefully lead us to a place of ultimate success,” According to Coach Micovich.
It’s not often that you have a coaching change after a winning season but it helps when the new coach has been around, and that is what happened in Milford with Micovich. Micovich talked about his promotion to top dog after spending time as the offensive and defensive coordinator saying “It just helps you become well rounded.” When Micovich started he was an offensive guy, but he went on to say that being the defensive coordinator he went into it planning on what would have made it tough to scheme vs an opponent on the offensive side, and the same went for when he went back to the offensive side. He also went so far as to say that at Milford they are lucky enough to have enough guys to the point where guys don’t have to play both sides of the ball.
Both Lesnew and Sternberg are leaders on the defense and that was a strong spot for Milford a year ago with Lesnew saying “We’re a bend don’t break defense,” stating that “if there is a big play we move on and we pick up each other.” With Coach Micovich’s background being on the offensive side of the ball he said “We’re going to continue with the same offensive scheme that is an uptempo no-huddle, and RPO centric,” he went on to say “ You’re going to see unbalanced fronts all the time only this year we are going to be able to tighten the bolts this year.” Micovich continued by saying “We are very unconventional and the weeks you play us you are going to have to conform to us.”
On the opposite sideline for our kick-off special Hall of Fame head coach Tom Hoover comes out of retirement. Hoover retired following the 2016 football season, and coming back after being away Hoover said that getting back into it has been a lot of fun. Hoover would go on to talk about how being back on the sideline brought back a great deal of competitive spirit for him.
Hoover also talked about the challenges this has brought and on that, he said “It’s definitely a change in format, but the adjustments have been good so far,” he would continue by saying “It takes time to master new things in all phases of the game.” That may be true but Hoover knew that going into the season, and that’s why he made sure to bring in a great staff around him. Not only are his coaches great, but he also had high praise of his players saying “We have good kids who have been a real pleasure to work with.”
Predictions
After a 21-20 loss to Milford last season Huron is looking to bounce back under a new head coach that can right the ship, however, Milford is keeping the systems the same and looking to build on the success of a year ago. Both teams will be breaking in new Quarterbacks, which means this one might come down to a coaching adjustment late in the game.
Josh: Huron
Jason: Huron