Football: Cougars poster boys for change

Kempner's spring was filled with changes. The program welcomed a rookie head coach, new coordinators and plenty of fresh faces to a new offense, including the quarterback and top ballcarrier.

But head coach/campus athletic coordinator Darrin Andrus hopes one thing stays the same ? the Cougars' recent success reaching the playoffs.

"I've been (at Kempner) for four years, so since Coach (James) Brown left we've just tried to keep everything moving in the right direction," Andrus said.

Andrus was the assistant head coach/offensive line coach under Brown, who left for North Forney in January after leading the Cougars to the playoffs in each of his four seasons as head coach.

Andrus is a 17-year coaching veteran, with stops at Alvin and Brazosport after coming out of Texas A&M, but this is his first opportunity to lead a team. He was hired as the coach before Spring Break.

"It was a good feeling," Andrus said.

"I waited for a long time and things kind of fell into place. It's something that you strive to do as an assistant coach, to get your own program, so I'm really excited about it."

His first order of business was tweaking a staff fixed at eight coaches because of a hiring freeze. He moved defensive coordinator Jim Barber to the same position on offense and promoted linebackers coach Jared Sloan to defensive coordinator.

Then, during spring football, he turned his attention to the players, who will be playing two ways more than ever in the upcoming season.

"We're having to coach both sides of the football now and kids are playing both ways, offense and defense, so that was a pretty good change for them," Andrus said.

"We had done it in the past, with letting a few of them play two sides of the ball, but we're making every one of them except the offensive linemen play both sides now."

Brown installed a triple option offense at Kempner that worked very well for four years but that approach will change somewhat under Andrus, mainly because of the team's incoming personnel.

"We don't have the kids to run it this year but we're going to try to keep some of the same option-type game in there and then do a lot of power and counter stuff to try to stay with some of our old philosophy while putting in a few new wrinkles, too," Andrus said.

The spring was dedicated to finding out who can play and forging a new offensive identity, but that process was set back by an injury to Terrell Clement, who is slated to replace Julius White under center.

The incoming senior dislocated his thumb in the Cougars' first spring scrimmage. His hand came down on a helmet and a bone came out of the back of his thumb, forcing him to miss the rest of spring.

Fortunately, the injury wasn't as serious as it first appeared. Clement went to an emergency room, had the bone reset, his thumb sewn up, and he's already lifting weights and running this summer.

But with very little in the way of 7-on-7 football on tap, the damage was done.

"That threw us off a little bit, because we didn't have really a true backup, but we made it through it and he's fine now, so we're going to move on from there," Andrus said.

The team's top rusher, outside of White, was fullback Veidal Johnson last season, but he graduated, and the new offense won't feature a fullback in the same way.

That leaves incoming senior Kenny Iloka and incoming junior Dominic Taccolini as the top options. Both will see time at tailback and on defense, Iloka at free safety and Taccolini at linebacker.

"We're based out of an 'I' now so we don't really have a true fullback like (Johnson) was," Andrus said. "But we have the Iloka kid, whose brother is the starting safety at Boise State. He's going to play some tailback for us.

"We also have Taccolini, who's going to dot the 'I' for us."

The offensive line still has several holes, but Jordan Longoria, who played JV last season, looked good at right tackle last month, and Darek Pfinninger made a successful move from guard to center.

Andrus hopes to fill out the line when the Cougars come back together in August.

"We're still trying to mix and match and find out who those five are going to be but we have a pretty good idea of where they're at right now," Andrus said.

Source: http://ultimatefortbend.com/stories/250235-football-cougars-poster-boys-for-change

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