Editor's note: This is the 14th story in an ongoing series about area high school football teams preparing for the 2020 season.
An early Jessieville scrimmage last week may have not showcased its best performace, but head coach T.J. Burk and his Lions' defensive core are ready to wreak havoc for new opponents in the 3A-5.
Despite a small number of returning players, Burk hopes a large group of younger athletes will quickly find their respective roles on the team.
"The returners that we have, we've only got five," explained Burk. "We got junior Ty Lafoon as one of our linebackers, senior Charlie Davis and senior Landon Daley are safeties. ... Our corners, we got two juniors that were sophomores last year -- Alisson Quinonez and Luke Goessman. We're still trying to figure out who fits where. Our scrimmage game hopefully helped us the other night (to) figure that out, but we've still got a lot of questions that we've got to answer in the next two weeks."
Sticking with the 3-3 stack defense, the Lions will rely on a hefty number of "new faces" to fuel and execute the same gameplan that proved successful for Jessieville in recent years.
"Last year, we played pretty well defensively," Burk said. "We've got a lot of new faces this year, so we're gonna have to figure it out. We've got to get our guys playing flat down the line of scrimmage and not running upfield. Our young kids are gonna have to learn quickly.
"We struggled the other night in the scrimmage, but hopefully through watching the film and the next two weeks of practice, we can get it fixed. ... There's just a learning curve there any time you've got young guys that are playing. The game's faster when you step up from junior high to senior high, and they've got to adjust to the speed of the game."
With Quinonez handling the list of Jessieville's kicking duties, Burk and his special teams staff are confident in the kicker's caliber after the junior went 2 for 2 during last week's scrimmage at Poyen.
"He did a great job for us last year," noted Burk.
The Lions look forward to conference play as they eagerly await to compete with familiar and unknown foes with the move back to the 3A-5, and the program looks to adopt a mentality that makes every game count this fall.
"I think this conference is probably a little bit tougher, especially at the top with adding Prescott back to our schedule," Burk pointed out. "They're always tough, and I think from top to bottom, there's not a weak link in this conference. ... They're just excited to be getting to play.
"I think life's about opportunities, and you take advantage of them when you have them, and we discussed that with our guys that, 'We know you've got an opportunity to play, but it may not be here tomorrow, so take advantage of every opportunity that you get.' That's just kind of our mentality going into the year."