Quarterbacks are commodities for high school football teams, and Blake Feldt didn’t have many of them during his first spring training camp at Permian.
Now, as the head coach prepares for his second spring season with the Panthers, he almost has more than he can count.
Along with Heath Wood and Trey Potter, who were the program’s only varsity quarterbacks last spring, Feldt said the Panthers will have Jonathan Araujo and Tye Young taking snaps when their spring practice season begins at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday at John Wilkins Field. Thad Fortune, Permian’s new offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, said Tyler Marquez and Sean Garcia give the team even more depth under center.
“It’s going to be a real tough competition between the guys that we have,” Araujo said. “We’re all well-rounded. It’s just going to come down to who wants it more and who’s more determined.”
Feldt said the junior Wood and sophomore Potter, who shared the quarterback duties in the fall, are the frontrunners to lead the offense again next season. Wood made the majority of the starts in 2013 and finished with 1,039 yards and 11 touchdowns passing, while Potter helped lead the Panthers to their first win under Feldt and threw for 446 yards and one TD.
But Araujo, a junior, and the freshman Young showed promise on the sub-varsity level last year. Araujo started the JV White team that finished 8-2, and Young led a Freshman Black squad that went 9-0-1.
Fortune said the competition among the quarterbacks should benefit all of them as the Panthers work their way toward the annual Black-White Spring Game, scheduled for May 23 at Ratliff Stadium.
“I just want those guys to relax, be confident in their abilities and take care of the football and lead the football team,” Fortune said. “I’m excited because I think those guys are capable of doing that.”
Along with improving themselves physically, Potter said he and Wood have worked on becoming better leaders during the offseason. They both were varsity rookies a year ago and expect to have a greater sense of ownership with the 2014 team.
But that doesn’t mean the two returnees expect to inherit the same roles they had last season. Feldt said Wood will be withheld from contact this spring as he continues to recover from knee surgery in December, so he won’t compete in the spring-ending scrimmage.
“Me and Heath aren’t comfortable at all,” Potter said. “He’s coming off an injury. For me it was an OK season (last year), but to me it wasn’t a good season. We battle with each other and hold each other to a standard. We keep improving every day, because we don’t want to get lazy.”
Feldt said his team as a whole has been anything but lazy during the offseason, which he called “fantastic.” He said most of the Panthers have gotten bigger, stronger and faster while working out before and after school and during the athletic period, and Permian has several promising youngsters sprinkled throughout the field.
Perhaps more importantly, Araujo and Potter said the players are more committed to themselves and the coaching staff than they were a year ago, when some in the program struggled to adjust to Feldt’s new regime.
Feldt, who finished 4-6 and missed the playoffs in his first season with the Panthers, hopes it all adds up to a more successful fall.
“Our intent is to have a good football team next year, and I think that we’re going to,” Feldt said. “It’s a huge spring for us, and we’re excited about getting started.”