Wildcats rich with talent in Ritchey’s first season
New Archer City head coach Bradan Ritchey knew he had something special when he first set foot on campus in February. The Wildcats were coming off an 8-3 record, their first district championship in over a decade and had won games in the postseason for each of the last two years.
“These kids have done everything we’ve asked them to,” Ritchey said. “It’s been a great fall camp. We’ve gotten a lot better. Our energy has stayed up. We’ve done things to take care of them and throw them a bone every now and then. They’ve been tremendous to work with. My family and these coaches are blessed to be here and we’re really excited.”
Expectations around the program are that the Wildcats will once again compete for the district crown despite being in a league that could see anywhere from four to five teams win the championship at the end of the season.
“We’re going to have an extremely competitive district,” Ritchey said. “For example, I know when we go play Windthorst, they’re going to have things that I know they can do to us that we’re going to have a hard time with and there’s going to be things we can do to them that they’re going to have a hard time with. It’s the same way with everybody in this league. It’s going to be a fight every week. From top to bottom, I feel like it’s solid, especially with the top four or five teams.”
A challenging non-district schedule should set Archer City up for success even if the win/loss record doesn’t show it. Playing four schools in larger classifications (Quanah, Anson, Millsap, Henrietta) the first four weeks should challenge the Wildcats enough to fit the pieces into place before a bye and Seymour comes to town.
It’s hard to talk about the Wildcats without mentioning junior Elijah Jackson, an all-around talent that is expected to line up everywhere on the field for Archer City. Jackson’s done it all in his first two years on varsity. Last year, he earned honorable mention all-state honors as a utility player after throwing for 232 yards and three scores, rushing for 537 yards and nine touchdowns and catching 17 passes for 221 yards and three touchdowns. On the defensive side of the ball, he averaged 9.8 tackles per game with 12 tackles for loss, including six sacks.
“So far during fall camp, Elijah has been just about everywhere on the field,” Ritchey said. “First of all, that’s a lot to ask of a kid. Second of all, the cool thing about him is he wants to do it all. If we just made him a defensive end and just made him a running back, he’d get bored. He wants to do all that stuff. He’s really good at all that stuff and we have kids that we can move around that makes it good for us to do all that stuff. He’s very intelligent. You can’t do all that stuff unless you’re smart. He’s one of those that if you tell him once or twice, it’s done. That’s been really nice. I brought him in the first day I got here and told him that he’s going to have a lot on his plate. He was happy to hear that which was cool.”
Offensively, if the Wildcats can field enough talent on the offensive line, this has the makings of being a team that can be very dangerous in the postseason.
“What I want to do, regardless of what ends up being our best offense, is force them to defend the entire field every play and get our kids in spots where we can take advantage of however they play us,” Ritchey explained. “My expectation overall is that we’re a very good offense. I would be disappointed if we were just an average offense. A lot of that depends on the o-line guys. If we can get them to come along, we’ll be pretty good; if they struggle then we’ll struggle to move the ball.”
Gunner Smith, Cooper Jones, Brenden Mason, Dominic Thomas, Shooter Canada, Brody Reneau, Zayne Foster and Alejandro Rodriguez are expected to rotate around up front until a cohesive unit emerges.
“Gunner is one of those that he’s such a good athlete that when we pull guards, sometimes he beats the running back out there. He’s a strong, physical kid. He lacks a little size but he makes up for it by doing everything right. Cooper has a chance to be a solid lineman but he’s got a lot of learning to do. We’ve got some other pieces in Brenden and Dominic. Those are kids that can step in and do a good job for us. Shooter’s come on a little bit faster than Brody in this fall camp but potential-wise, they’ve got it. Shooter’s a big, strong kid. Brody’s a strong, tough kid. If I can get them playing technique-wise like they need to, they’ve got a chance to be really good players. Zayne was at Windthorst last year and he’s already good. We expect big things out of him. The last guy we’re looking at is Alejandro. There’s a barrier there with him originally being from Cuba but if I can make it where he can understand it, he’ll be an animal. He’s 6-4, 280 so there’s not a lot of those at this level. As a group, there’s a lot of learning and maturing to do but if we can get it done, I like the people we have in spots to figure it out. Talent-wise it’s there.”
Joe Castles has seen most of the reps under center through fall camp and he is expected to rotate in and out with Jackson at quarterback.
“A huge advantage of having Joe at quarterback is he gets to go home with the quarterback’s coach. Coach Castles does an awesome job. They’ll go over the play script every night where he’ll draw up every play. He comes to practice very prepared the next day. We’ve only got into about 35% of what I would say my offense is and he’s grasped it very well. That makes me feel comfortable that we can start adding when we need to. The spot we’re in right now is Elijah is such a natural athlete. I could put him anywhere on the field and he’s going to be good at it no matter what because he’s naturally gifted. I know we could plug Elijah in straight away and he wouldn’t miss a beat. I wouldn’t classify either one of them as the quarterback. At the end of the day, we’re going to have a couple different looks that we can throw at people and they’ll both fit that system.”
Depth at the wide receiver position should not be an issue for the Wildcats. On the outside, Chance Warren returns after catching 46 passes for 524 yards and 10 touchdowns, all team-highs. McKinnen Beaver and Kole Stovall occupy the slot and both have speed to burn. Bookending Warren is Layken Cagle, another matchup nightmare for opponents with his size and length. Rotating in at the slot positions is Landon Smith, Noah Cornell, Laine Hall and Isaac Dieguez.
“I feel like wide receiver is our deepest position. Of all the people we play, our receiver depth will be our biggest advantage. We have guys we can run on and run off and really not skip a beat. Chance is a special player. McKinnen has something no one is is going to have and that’s speed. Layken is like Chance, long and lanky. He’s a great route-runner and catches everything. Kole is very smooth with great hands and he’s a burner. He’s not quite as fast as McKinnen but he can go. Landon Smith and Noah Cornell are another two good slot, inside receivers. When we’re moving Elijah around, they can plug right in. That’s a spot we’re really excited about. We feel like we can rely on those guys to take us a long way.”
At running back, Jre Donnell is coming off a knee injury last season but is expected to shine while Kline Mayo has worked in at H-back and been one of the brightest spots of camp according to Ritchey. Sam Machtolff has split time in the backfield as well at the running back position.
“We’ve got big plans for Jre. With him coming off the knee injury, we’re slowly easing him into it but he’s got a one-step burst that other guys don’t have. Sam is playing a lot of running back and a little linebacker and a little bit of corner. He’s been a huge bright spot. He’s one of those that once we put the pads on really stood out to us.”
Defensively, the Wildcats are transitioning from a blitz-heavy scheme into a more traditional, multiple 3-4 under defensive coordinator Clint Coles.
“Our goal is to make it hard on the other team to gameplan for. There’s a lot of different looks. We move a lot up front. Our guys are really picking it up. One thing that is really good about what we’re doing this year compared to last year is we’ve got some really good linebackers that we’re letting be linebackers instead of shooting them through gaps. When Kline and Gunner have been able to run sideline-to-sideline they’ve been very good.”
On the defensive line, Jackson and Donnell have lined up at the outside rush-end position while Thomas, Canada, Foster, Reneau and Thomas have rotated in at the interior position.
“Having Jre and Elijah both at defensive end, you’ve got to go at one of them. I wouldn’t want to make that decision. They all fit in to what the rest of our team is. We don’t have anybody that’s just real big but we can run across the board. Our strength is our speed. We can get all 11 hats to the football. We don’t have a slow kid on the field.”
The Wildcats’ defense is anchored by Smith, a senior all-state performer a season ago after amassing 203 tackles while Mayo returns after averaging 12.4 stops per game.
“Gunner and Kline have been tremendous. Elijah and Jre can both back up and play outside linebacker. All of those guys are fast and aggressive. There’s not one of them that’s scared to go tackle you. We feel really good about our linebackers. We don’t feel like besides our size we have any glaring weakness.”
In the secondary, Hall and Dieguez appear to have locked down the starting corner roles while Stovall, Beaver and Cagle have rotated between the two safety position.
“Laine and Isaac have been solid since day one. They do a tremendous job no matter the coverage. They’re very smart. We can mix up the coverage whenever we want to. Our safeties have been a bright spot in Kole, McKinnen and Layken. Those have been the main three guys that have been rotating at those two safety spots. They can all run well and they’re smart so we feel like we can mix the coverages up.”
With Ritchey’s injection of energy into the program, these Wildcats are a team to keep your eye on and should be an immediate contender for a district championship.
