GRAINFIELD – Wheatland-Grinnell played host to Sharon Springs-Wallace County in Week 4 in a key Eight-Man, Division II, District 6 contest last season. From 2010-18, the Thunderhawks went 0-7 versus Wallace County, including a forfeit defeat. In the other six contests, Wallace County outscored Wheatland-Grinnell, 306-26.
The Thunderhawks fumbled on the game’s first offensive play, and the Wildcats recovered. Three plays later, Wallace County was at the Thunderhawk 17-yard line. Wildcat senior end Cody Seader was several inches taller than Wheatland-Grinnell’s freshman 5-foot-10, 150-pound free safety Jett Vincent.
Vincent’s responsibilities were primarily pass.
“Don’t let anybody get behind me,” he said.
He was in 1-on-1 coverage, outjumped Seader and picked off the pass in the end zone. Wheatland-Grinnell eventually won, 44-0, as Vincent intercepted four balls on the night.
The performance served as a link between four safeties that cover a half century of Kansas high school football: Vincent, former Paxico great Dan Wagner, former St. John safety Travis Neidig and current Canton-Galva junior Tyson Struber.
Vincent eventually delivered a remarkable season with a state-best 13 interceptions. He had all of his team’s picks, though the first INT against Wallace County ranked as his favorite. Even during the summer, Vincent kept the photo of the play on his phone.
“Our entire philosophy was seven guys play the run,” Wheatland-Grinnell coach Jesse Vincent said. “And one guy dare them to throw, that kind of was our philosophy with him. We didn’t care how much run support help he was, we just didn’t want anybody to throw on us back there.”
Eventually, the Thunderhawks went 8-2. In Week 6, Wheatland-Grinnell defeated rival Quinter for the first time in school annals.
“They basically let him roam free,” Logan-Palco head coach Mike Jenner, who saw the Thunderhawks in Week 2 last fall, said. “I am sure he has got some kind of run responsibilities, but it looks like they take a lot of that off of him, so he can kind of just play center field out there. I mean, he’s quick, he’s fast, he seems to get good reads on the ball.”
Linebacker Trevor Zarybnicky led the Thunderhawks in tackles and has earned Division I interest.
Jesse is a former Sterling College quarterback, said Jett’s first step, jump on the ball, and “nose for where the ball is going” is “huge.”
“A lot of it is Trevor and other guys, they are able to crush the quarterback, so some balls are desperation chucks, and they are easy picks for him,” coach Vincent said. “He had a few that he laid out and made the great catches, too.”
The Thunderhawks had a seven-win improvement from ’19, and the best season in school history since Grainfield and Grinnell first joined together for football in the mid-2000s. Wheatland-Grinnell permitted 168 points after 421 allowed in ’18.
“It helps a lot when you have a great defensive line and linebacker putting a tremendous amount of pressure on the quarterback and put them in the bad decisions to throw up the ball,” Jett said this summer in Grainfield.
On Friday, Wheatland-Grinnell plays host to Axtell, ranked third, in a battle of top-10 Eight-Man, Division II squads. Axtell is the defending Division II runner-up. Later in districts, Whealtnad-Grinnell faces St. Francis, last year’s Division I runner-up. Jett’s brother, Trey, returns as the three-year junior starting quarterback.
“I have told them as eighth graders that if you guys stick with it, we will play for a state championship before you are out of high school, and I believe that,” coach Vincent said. “I think that that core group is so good, Trevor’s class has got the size, and the meat and the muscle, and then the class behind Trey is Jett, and there’s several athletes in that class.”
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In recent seasons, the Kansas football record book has consistently gone through changes.
In the last several years, virtually all of state passing records have been re-written from the likes of Bishop Miege’s Carter Putz, Hanover’s Will Bruna, and Axtell’s Quinn Buessing, a senior last fall. Wichita Northwest, Rossville, and Blue Valley North have combined to set more than a half-dozen individual and team marks in the past three falls, according to the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame.
However, the single-season and career interception records are some of the longest-standing – and marks that Vincent and Struber could challenge. Neidig, who played at St. John from ’04-07 and now lives in Garden City, holds the state 11-man record with 17 INTs in ’05. Neidig has the overall Kansas record with 32 interceptions.
Early on, coaches taught Neidig to watch the quarterback’s facemask and that’s what he did. He played 10 to 11 yards back off the line, took a three-step drop and watched the quarterback. Neidig played free safety all four years. Neidig liked seeing the play in front of him versus watching the receiver’s eyes. Offensively, he played wide receiver his first three seasons, and starting quarterback as a senior.
“I was a lot more comfortable at free safety than I was at corner,” he said. “I can promise you, I can’t guard a soul if I am right up next to them.”
He first came in midway through the season opener of his freshman year, and then started the remainder of the contests. He recalled just one injury that at most cost him a game his freshman year.
“I was basically center field,” he said this summer. “Kind of the last hope if a run broke through. If anybody passes, I was over the top, so I was kind of the last hope for that as well. I was also blessed to have a lot of really good teammates that year (’05) and a lot of really good coaches. But our corners that year were very, very solid.”
In eight-man, Bennington’s Gunner Boss delivered 31 from 1985-88. Wagner picked off 24 his senior year for Paxico in ’71, an 8-2 squad. Wagner, now retired in Paxico after a long career with Paxico school district in administration and coaching, has the national single-season interception record.
Wagner is the brother of Riley County head coach Steve Wagner, now in his 37th year with the Falcons. Steve told his brother that the 24 INTs was the most incredible record he’s ever heard of. Paxico did not track interceptions his first three seasons.
“Only in eight-man football can you see a record like that,” Dan said this summer. “Because what happened that year, we had a good team my senior year, and there were teams that we just slaughtered. But the mismatch in eight-man football, it’s going to be ugly. We played three or four basically running teams, and we would get up on them quick. We would be ahead 24-0 in the first quarter or whatever, so that forced them to start throwing, and some of those teams were obviously not good throwing teams.”
Wagner recalled two of the teams had freshmen quarterbacks. Paxico played a 4-1-1-2 defense with four linemen. Wagner said the defense helped him get in position for the INTs.
“I was a rover back,” he said. “They never knew where I was going to be. I just roamed. That was another reason why I was able to get that many interceptions, because I was really kind of a mixture between a d-back and a linebacker, but I just floated. A lot of times they call them ‘monster backs.’”
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Few players in recent history have even come close to Neidig’s and Boss’ marks. Notably, Victoria’s Jordan Ottley, a Shrine Bowler, recorded 25 interceptions in a career that ended in ’08.
Kiowa County’s Trever Powell, now the first-year head coach at Bucklin, delivered 17 in his last three seasons before he graduated in ’13. Great Bend’s Dalton Miller, a four-year starter in the secondary from ’16-19 and a Shrine Bowler, recorded 12 career picks. Tayler Stull, a four-year starting safety and Shrine Bowler for La Crosse from ’08-11, also picked off 12 passes.
Hanover’s Daiken Stallbaumer played in four state title games from ’15-18 and finished with 18 career interceptions.
Struber, with KU and K-State offers, has 17 INTs in his first two seasons, including seven in the Eagles’ 13-0 state title last fall. As well, Axtell’s Isaac Detweiler picked off seven passes as a freshman in ’19. He recorded 845 receiving yards and accounted for 25 offensive scores. Detweiler is expected to play quarterback against Wheatland-Grinnell and Vincent on Friday.
Struber credited Canton-Galva defensive coordinator Tyler O’Connor, a former all-state linebacker at Wallace County, for helping the Eagles’ defense. Plus, Struber’s ability at wide receiver has helped on defense.
“We watch a lot of film, and it really helps out when you can almost narrow things down to a few specific plays the other team might run,” Struber said at the Sharp Combine in July. “So it’s a higher chance of knowing what’s coming, if you already have in your head what you are going to do when you see different formations.”
Like Vincent, Wagner and Neidig, Struber has been able to roam – freedom that could yield a run at some long-standing records in 2020.
“You are not limited to one side of the field playing corner,” he said. “You rarely ever are running sideline to sideline, but being a free safety, it’s easier to read the quarterback’s eyes and being able to move around wherever you need to, to make a play.”
2020 Potential Breakout Teams
For the seventh straight year, Kpreps has picked Potential Breakout Teams for each class. Last year, Kpreps picked 13 teams to breakout. Those squads went a combined 58-62 in 2018. Last year, those squads improved to 90-46.
The improvements included Norton, which had a plus-five win improvement to 9-4 and reached its first title game for the first time in 30 years. Andover Central had a plus-six improvement and reached the 4A title game. Holton and Blue Valley were both plus-4 with a district title and a state semifinal showing, respectively. Cedar Vale-Dexter enjoyed the best season in its co-op history.
Overall, Kpreps has selected 53 teams from ’14-19 pieces. Forty-one of those teams improved. Eight have decreased its record, and four have had the same record.
Below are this year’s picks:
Class 6A: Olathe West, Wichita East
Last season, Olathe West went 6-4, and Wichita East finished 5-4. Olathe West is up from Class 5A.
East’s offense jumped by nine points per contest and a host of Division I talent, led by wide receiver Daylan Jones, returned.
Olathe West, in its third season as a varsity program, brings back multiple talented players, led by safety Trey Krause, quarterback Alex Birge, running back Anthony Favrow, and lineman Luke Zegunis. Favrow rushed for 1,324 yards and 16 scores, and Birge passed for 1,279 yards with a 12/3 TD/INT ratio. Krause delivered 143 tackles, and four offensive line starters are back.
Class 5A: Topeka Seaman, Hays High, Blue Valley Southwest
Topeka Seaman went 2-7, and Hays High was 4-6. Hays has received significant preseason attention with its four players with FBS Division I offers: quarterback Dylan Dreiling (Tennessee baseball commit), junior linebacker Gavin Meyers, junior all-purpose threat Jaren Kanak and senior Gaven Haselhorst (K-State commit). Hays High, which opened Thursday with a win at Goddard-Eisenhower, has not posted a winning season since ’14. The Indians notably should be much stronger on defense.
Topeka Seaman, receiving virtually no preseason attention, had a three-win drop back to 2-7 under highly successful coach Glenn O’Neill. Seaman committed 27 turnovers and finished minus-14 in turnover margin, both very rare totals. Senior Nathan Zeferjahn delivered 51 stops. Quarterback Reid Cowan is back after Seaman went through a high number of injuries. Cowan threw for 734 yards, completed 54 percent of passes with a 2/8 TD/INT ratio. Two years ago, Seaman committed 12 turnovers and was plus-3 in turnover margin.
Blue Valley Southwest was 3-8 last fall, but returns a large number of key players. Senior Tanner Curry completed 188 of 305 passes for 1,883 yards with a 16/13 TD/INT ratio. BVSW rushed for just 453 yards as a team, a number that is likely to improve. Senior Tristen Everard caught 59 passes for 640 yards and five touchdowns.
Three of top-four tacklers are back, including the top-two: seniors Ian Keylon (86 tackles, nine TFLs in just seven games) and Cal Kilgore (81 stops). East had its first winning season since ’12 with three losses by 14 points or fewer.
Class 4A: Lansing
Lansing was 4-5 last year. The Lions have not won more than six games since an 8-2 season in 2010. Lansing, though, returns junior Caden Crawford, a top-5 recruit in the 2022 class with several FBS offers. Crawford is expected to play quarterback in 2020, as well as continue to start at linebacker. Senior Malik Benson is an impactful two-way player. Benson caught 27 passes for 368 yards and a touchdown. Senior Dylan Ward easily paced the Lions with 93 tackles, and Crawford finished with 36 stops.
Class 3A: Southeast of Saline
Southeast of Saline went 7-3 last season in 2A and returns virtually everyone, notably quarterback/defensive back Jaxson Gebhardt. The Trojans have its quarterback, top-two rushers and leading eight tacklers. SE Saline returns 95 percent of its rushing yards with Gebhardt and Bryant Banks. Seniors Tyler Breeding, Sterling Harp, Eli Harris and junior Matthew Rodriguez (94 tackles, 20 TFLs) are all back.
Class 2A: Haven
Haven was 4-5 and has a chance for its first winning season since ’01 when Dave Foster, now the coach for more than a decade at Dodge City, led the Wildcats. Senior quarterback Darby Roper leads a host of returner. He rushed for 614 yards and four touchdowns, and passed for 697 yards and seven TDs. Roper also led Haven with 54 stops.
Last season, Haven won its most games since ’04 and posted sizable offensive and defensive improvements from ’18. The Wildcats also forced 13 more turnovers. Haven has a challenging Week 1 road game with Hesston, but the schedule also presents some advantages.
Class 1A: Oakley
Oakley has continued to build with coach Jeff Hennick and went 3-6 last year. The Plainsmen are 1-8, 1-8, 3-6, 3-6 in the last four falls, the latter three with Hennick.
When he took over, Hennick wanted to have some measurable goals. He set benchmarks to win a Mid-Continent League game and win a game in October. Last year, Oakley beat La Crosse in October, a game that has provided some momentum. Oakley is at improving Thomas More Prep to start this season.
“When I took over the job, they were kind of down,” Hennick said. “Kids didn’t have much confidence, stuff like that. When you set your goals, sometimes you have got to set some small goals before you can get to your biggest ones. I told myself that it was going to take a little bit.”
Oakley has a high number of returners, led by seniors Eric Cain and Ethan Abell. Cain delivered 1,339 yards with a 12/8 TD/INT ratio.
Abell delivered 104 carries for 824 yards and 10 touchdowns. As well, Abell collected 22 catches for 282 yards and five TDs.
Cain did not play football as a freshman, though came out as a sophomore after Hennick developed a relationship with him. In Week 6 of ’18, the starting quarterback broke his hand in the second half against Ellis. Hennick said Cain became the starter and did “very well.”
Afterward, Hennick told his staff that Cain “was going to be our guy moving forward.” A senior, who had never played quarterback, offered to step up, but Oakley, without any JV games, elected to stay with Cain to build for the future.
“Wasn’t an ideal way that we wanted him to take over the role, but he’s there,” Hennick said.
Eight-Man, Division I: La Crosse, Meade
La Crosse and Meade, both longtime 11-man powers, each drop to eight-man for the first time. La Crosse was 5-4 and Meade 3-7 last fall. La Crosse opened 5-0 last fall. The Leopards have several key players because of COVID-19 quarantine for its season-opening game versus Victoria, but they are expected to be at full strength for Week 2.
Junior Colby Stull has delivered a pair of back-to-back strong seasons, along with 151 carries for 1,322 yards and 16 touchdowns. Junior Cooper Barriger (75 tackles) and senior Lucas Webster are key players back. La Crosse should be the District 6 favorite.
Meade should improve a passing game that completed just 35 percent of passes for an 8/12 TD/INT ratio. Junior Korben Clawson led the Buffs with 152 carries for 754 yards.
Eight-Man, Division II: Logan-Palco
Logan-Palco was 4-5 for coach Mike Jenner and had to play eventual Division II state champion Osborne, along with Leoti-Wichita County and Thunder Ridge, both teams which made at least the quarterfinals. Logan-Palco’s schedule is likely relatively easier, especially with a first month of Lakeside-Downs, Stockton, Lincoln and Sharon Springs.
“Our schedule, it looks good for us, our district where we got moved to the west again is good for us,” Jenner said. “The problem, once again the way it’s been with us every year that I have been here is our depth. I mean, if we can stay healthy, we can make a lot of good things happen, because we bring back a lot of good players. It’s just that once we get past that starting position, we really don’t have a lot of depth at all.”
Logan-Palco still averaged 31.1 points per game and returns the bulk of its roster. Junior quarterback Dylan Van Laeys passed for 521 yards with a 10/6 TD/INT ratio. His brother, Josh, was a former standout for the Trojans.
“He’s a good athlete, but he’s smart,” Jenner said. “He could recite the playbook backwards and forwards. He can tell you what every person is supposed to do on the line, just like his brother was, and that’s what he brings to us, and I really think he’s going to have a breakout year this year.”
“And it’s kind of funny, because Josh was kind of the same way,” Jenner added. “His sophomore year he was OK, and then his junior and senior year, he really became a great football player.”
All but 12 rushing yards are back. Junior Josh Uhland led with 113 carries for 722 yards and 10 scores, and seniors Ian Sparks and Micah Thompson combined for 815 rushing yards and eight TDs.
Six of the top-eight tacklers are back. Sparks, who spent some time with a custom cutting crew this summer, led with 99 tackles, 16 for loss. Sparks could move to the line. Uhland reminds Jenner of David Thompson, who rushed for 4,764 yards from ’14-17. Uhland is up to 6-1, 195-200, and Jenner labeled him a “phenomenal athlete.”
“As far as heart and just giving everything he’s got, he brings that all the time, and I have noticed this year just in the workouts we have done this summer, he has gotten a lot bigger, a lot faster, he’s been working hard on his own,” Jenner said of Uhland.
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