By SuperCentex.com Co-Owner Dustin Hicks
August 4, 2010
 

Yes sir, football season is finally here.  With the start of 2-A-Day practices on Monday, most high school football fans feel as though a they can start to live again.  From August to December, a new lifestyle is being  lived since all Central Texans take their football so serious most stake their whole reputation with co-workers and fans from other teams on the success of their hometown team.  Dreams are not only obtainable for the athletes, students and coaches of each school, they are sometimes even more important to the "old timers" from  each town. 

From right now till week zero, every team around the area has the highest of hopes.  For teams who failed to make the playoffs it's a fresh start, a new beginning, a renewed sense of school spirit that depends on the work their program puts in during these grueling days.  For teams who are expected to make long playoff runs and beat down their opponents, the last thing they want to do is let themselves and their fans down.  In this article, we will take a look at both sides of the spectrum as our 2-A-Day tour takes us to Axtell and Mart.    

The Axtell Longhorns are a team that seems to have the odds stacked against them when it comes to what's written in black and white.   The Longhorns, who failed to make the playoffs last year in 1A with 3-7 record, face a tough test as they move up to 2A in 2010. 

"We are trying to get rid of all the bad memories from last year and trying to move on to good ones." Says veteran head coach Mike Caddell. 

"I told the players that on paper, I would pick us last too." 

Caddell is known for getting straight to the point with his players... in a good way.  He doesn't sugar coat his messages to his Longhorns, and he lets them know they have a lot to prove in 2010. 

When asked what the difference will be moving up to 2A he tells SuperCentex.com, "It's alright, you line up and play whether you 1A and 2A, there's really good football in this area at both levels. We are really excited to be who we are with and start new". 

When a school moves up in classification there's nothing better to ask for than a coach like Caddell.  Considering the consistency Caddell and his staff exhibits, there is no confusion on what the coaches want and will ask from their players. And their demand is 1000% at all times. 

Summer workouts have been great for Axtell with most of them headed up by QB Josh Reynolds.  Josh has developed into a great leader for the Longhorns ever since the last district game against Dawson in 2009, when the Longhorns knew they had no chance of making the post season. 

"I always tell everyone we have the hardest working kids in the state.  The Wednesday before we played Dawson last year you would have thought these guys were playing in the state championship." Says Cadell.

Reynolds made sure there were plenty of guys working out each day during the summer.

Caddell says, "Josh has gotten alot stronger since school let out."  

Josh will have more experienced protection in front of him as Axtell returns the most critical part of the offense, the o-line. 

"These guys have some Friday night light experience under their belts and we expect them to play well this year." Caddell said of his offensive line.

The same doesn't need to be said about Mart's hopes for a long playoff run as the Panthers return a stellar squad from 2009 whose biggest foe were the injury bugs.  Mart went 5-6 games last year with 3-4 critical starters out because of nagging injuries.  They played well through the injuries and started to click when it mattered.

"Our line is as solid as it's been." Says head coach Rusty Nail.  

"We are one lineman away from being pretty good and we have 2-3 great players battling for that left guard/left tackle position."

Mart's key replacement from the 2009 team, whose playoff run was cut short by the eventual dominating state champion Cayuga, is at kicker with the loss of Matthew Shaffer (UMHB).  Nail says fans may see two totally different kickers on kickoff and PAT.

Like Axtell this year, Mart dropped down from 1A two years ago. The Panthers had 19 freshman show up for 2-A-Day practice with 60 total Panthers putting on the practice gear. Their battle cry "Protect The Tradition" speaks for itself.

"We aren't looking back at Cayuga. We are thinking more along the lines of what we have to do to keep the Mart Panther tradition rolling," said Nail.

Coach Nail and the Panthers aren't looking ahead to the big games on their schedule as their #1 focus for these workouts is to prepare for their first opponent, Chilton. 

"We are going to do as we always have done, take it one at a time, there are 4 teams that can beat us before we even get to Goldthwaite."

"Our kids are even keel. Nobody's overboard with anything. They are pretty excited about everything and are ready to put the pads on Friday," says Nail.  

"The kids know the expectations of them and are going to execute the best they can."