CL Football: Will ? Marks Turn to ! Points?

Canyon Lake’s Football Team has started their preparation for another season as they have sights on increasing that 17 win total the team had garnered these last two campaigns.

“We lost a lot of experience,” Head Coach Charlie Drum stated. “Our biggest question mark will be seeing how the kids are going to react when the season starts.”

Those 2 previous years had an expected outcome with those 17 wins, which could have easily been more. Last year’s team was an injury waiting to happen and the Hawks were at a loss with more than one player on the offensive line being missed.

A pretty important loss in that line led to CL’s faulting as last year’s season came to a close. Especially in losing Jacob Ruff and Brandon Robinson, to name a few.

Two years ago, The Lake had injuries, but depth across the board helped hold that team together as they traveled 3 rounds into the post-season.

“Our team is pretty pumped up from this off-season….we lost just one game in our 7 on 7 league and we took advantage of our Football Mini-Camp,” Coach Drum continued. “A bunch of kids took advantage, this is the first year the UIL had allowed this type of action for a Summer.”

Canyon Lake will see if this can be reload team, but knowing how the players will react has question marks across the board until real game action takes off.

Offensively, the Hawks, will be entering their 7th year of running the Slot-T and that consistency should be a help that would minimize on the number of ?s and the size of those ?’s.

Coach Drum had this rendition on the offense, “Our QB (Peyton McMullen) will be the difference as he has taken more of a leadership role…he is one of our best athletes and we will utilize him more.”

McMullen started last season as a Sophomore and the Hawk Nation should be able to see that maturity step up and help reduce those, what will happen this year questions.

“We (Coaches) are watching our offensive line to see who we can count on,” Coach Drum said. “Knowing our depth is another question and we will find out a lot in our scrimmages on just what we have.”

Canyon Lake will have an intra-squad game this Saturday starting at 8am, but it will be those two scrimmages against 4A State Champion Cuero at home and then lining up vs. Leander Glenn. The Grizzlies finished last year with a 7-5 record in class 5A and will be the last game before the real deal starts.

“This group is hungry and wants to be a 2019 team that is no longer under a shadow from the two previous years,” Coach Drum said. “Each team has their own identity and this team is pretty close and unselfish….they know after watching last year that they are just one play away from entering a game and that is important in playing a roll if they are a back-up, special team, or starter.”

The Hawks don’t talk much bout receivers, but Coach Drum said they performed well in those 7 on 7 games and heaped praise for this group.

“Kyle Yuill has really developed and has worked hard on his receiving skills as well as Jeremy Greene, Cody Kline and Stephen Sharp…they all have done a great job with those receiving skills. This should help in stretching our opposing team’s defense if this part of our game can come through.”

On Defense, CL will have questions but those questions will not come from their athleticism as this group can hopefully mature their game to match in game action.

“We have some good team speed as a whole,” Coach Drum continued. “Hudson Duke will be our Defensive Tackle and Daniel Neel will help in the backfield….that is where those injuries helped this year’s team as several of these players were brought up during the end of last year to take the place of injured players….We have strength and experience with Rover Brandon Robinson and Ethan Slater and Defensive Backs, Nic Rivera, Cody Kline, and Tyler Pauly.”

CL’s Drum kept talking defense, “Kolten Ramey is athletic and Alex Hardin returns after leading our team in sacks last year….Patrick Almond, Kyle Wharton, and Derek Wiatrek all got experience in games last year.”

This will be the year that The Lake will be on the road for 6 contests which will be a first.

“Yeah, this is the first time I have ever had this happen,” Coach Drum finished. “I don’t think it is a big problem as many times it helps the team focus more by being away from home.”

“Marble Falls has installed the Slot-T offense and Weiss is a year older,” Coach Drum assessed. “Of course, Wimberley is always tough…but our district will be top heavy as Liberty Hill and Lampasas are both State ranked and the rest of us will be fighting it out.”

“I’m excited but we have a lot of question marks and just don’t know yet what this team will look like.”

You get the idea, ??????, will hopefully be turned into, !!!!!! as the season matures and another year of Post-Season play for your local heroes.

Go Hawks!!