New coach brings fresh, energetic approach to Lions

Tim Keenan

Pictured are the 11 returning starters and letterwinners for the Wellsville football team, coming off a 1-8 season in the Section 5 8-Man league. The Lions will play eight-man football for the third season under new head coach Tim Keenan. Front row (from left): Gabe Black, Noah Black, Xander Outman, Kayden Finch, Jack Davis. Back row: Breyden Crittenden, Sam Childs, Derek Coleman, JJ Howard, Matthew Ritter, Brennan Geffers.

WELLSVILLE — After a second season of eight-man football saw Wellsville struggle to a one-win campaign in 2022, it was time to try something different.

Tim Keenan, an assistant coach since Wellsville’s shift to eight-man in 2021, hopes he’s the man to turn the Lions’ program around. A 2006 Wayne Central (Ontario, N.Y.) graduate, Keenan played four years as a safety at Alfred University before getting his doctorate and now works as a professor at AU. He spent a year helping on the Saxons’ staff and then joined Wellsville as a quarterbacks’ coach.

He hopes to bring a ‘transparent, straightforward’ approach to dealing with high school players. He’s told the players what he expects from them and will make decisions accordingly.

“We print out like an itinerary for practice,” he said. “And it’s to the minute, we stick to it. And when we say like, you know, we’re gonna play who shows up and works. We’re not just gonna say, ‘Oh, well, this kid’s got a lot of talent, but he played Xbox all summer,’ and this kid showed up and lifted three days a week for 10 weeks, (and) the Xbox kid gets to play.’ I’m a ‘do what I say’ kind of guy.”

Keenan succeeds Bob McMorris, whose second stint leading the team lasted two seasons, bringing his Lions tenure to 14 seasons.

The new boss has been encouraged by Wellsville’s varsity numbers and even more in the younger ranks, to the point that he’s highly optimistic about the Lions returning to 11-man soon.

“If I had had these numbers, six weeks ago, I would have popped us back to 11-man,” he said. “We’re at like 23, 24 ... so we’re pretty much right back to 11-man numbers and with the freshman class we have coming up for next year, that’s going to be more kids than we’re losing with the senior class right now. So we’re definitely going back to 11-man next year.”

The deeper roster helps alleviate some of the issues Keenan sees with eight-man.

“That’s the biggest challenge with eight-man is you lose your tackles, a lot of times you’re either deciding am I going to play a receiver more like a tight end, or am I going to bring in a fullback and narrow the field essentially, or do I want to spread the field?” he said. “So offensively your guards are having to play run blockers and pass blockers on the edge. The pocket’s smaller so it makes it harder for the quarterback to navigate the pocket. And defensively you’ve got your corners essentially playing outside linebacker. It makes it tougher for 140-pound guys to make tackles one-on-one with fullbacks and tailbacks.”

Wellsville started five freshmen last year in a 1-8 season, down from 3-5 the year before. But those freshmen arrive in 2023 as sophomores in a much different position.

Now, Wellsville enters with optimism it could earn a top-four seed to qualify for the eight-man playoffs.

“It was a shoestring a little bit last year having five freshmen on the team, but now they’re our leaders,” Keenan said. “It’s great. So yeah, I mean out of those guys there’s a few clear-cut (leaders).

“Our quarterback now is a sophomore, our quarterback from last year, he’s a junior this year and he’s moving over to wideout, and he’s very talented there.

“Things are switching a little bit from the roles that we had last year. But it’s great because the younger guys are kind of taking that torch and running with it.”

Keenan talked of bringing modern 11-man concepts into Wellsville’s playbook. He thinks not only will it make the team more competitive this fall in eight-man, but prepare the Lions for future opportunities. It’s the coaches’ job to make offensive and defensive schemes feel “simplified” for the players.

“We’re trying to teach them football, not just, you know, snap the ball and a cloud of dust,” Keenan said. “We’re trying to teach them football so they’re recruitable at the college level, essentially. And obviously, so we can achieve success.

“It’s already taken. I mean, we do film, even our linemen are understanding what it means if you look up and you see one high safety, the odds are you gotta Cover 1 or Cover 3, if they see two safeties, odds are it’s Cover 2 or Cover 4 and if a linebacker moves with a guy in motion, odds are it’s man coverage, like they’re all starting to pick up on. So that’s great. That’s what we’re trying to achieve.”

Keenan raved about the Lions’ improved weight-room participation in addition to their eagerness to learn. Keenan said he hopes by the end of the year his quarterback can approach the line with “full freedom” to check out into a better play based on the defense’s look.

Larry Peacock is back as the Lions’ head assistant coach, with varsity assistants Isaiah Brooks and John Valentine, modified head coach Greg Cook and modified assistant Brad Joyce.

To run a no-huddle, Wellsville would use poster boards with recognizable characters — Batman or Spider-Man, for example — indicating certain correlating formations, and a whiteboard indicating the play’s direction. Players would then refer to position-specific instructions on their wristbands.

“I feel like the more you throw them, the more they want,” Keenan said. “I think the fear, especially dropping down to eight-man with so few guys before was that we were going to overwhelm them. But I think it’s the other way around, I think they get frustrated and they lose interest if you don’t give them enough.”

Keenan described his coaching style as “I’ll talk for 30 seconds, and then let you guys try it for 20 minutes,” rather than the other way around.

“Kids tune out fast now. We all say that as we get older, I think I probably did the same thing when I was 16, 17,” he said. “You get them out there and you’re talking and talking and talking, they tune out. And so I’d rather just, what we do now is we’ll show something on film or we’ll draw something up on the board and we’ll draw two, three plays, I have them look at the pages and their playbook and I say this is what we’re running on the field and we go out there, we do it for half an hour until we get it down. So they’re getting the hang of it, I think.”

THE RETURNING starters:

Gabe Black, sophomore, 5-7, 185, guard/defensive end

Noah Black, senior, 5-8, 170, guard/tackle/defensive end

Sam Childs, senior, 6-0, 157, running back/cornerback

Breydan Crittenden, senior, 5-8, 164, guard/nose tackle

Derek Coleman, sophomore, 6-1, 233, tight end/defensive end

Jack Davis, sophomore, 5-9, 139, wide receiver/cornerback

Kayden Finch, senior, 5-4, 231, guard/center/defensive tackle

Brennan Geffers, sophomore, 5-10, 142, quarterback/safety

JJ Howard, junior, 6-5, 173, wide receiver/safety

Xander Outman, sophomore, 5-7, 183, running back/linebacker

Matt Ritter, sophomore, 5-10, 171, running back/linebacker

THE PLAYERS, by position:

Offense

Quarterbacks: Geffers

Running Backs: Childs, Outman, Ritter, Connar Otero (sr., 6-1, 166), Tyler Rahr (fr., 5-6, 159), Uriah Tocher (soph., 5-11, 150)

Ends/Receivers: Coleman, Davis, Howard, Jasik Campbell (soph., 5-9, 126), David Clark (soph., 5-5, 123), Trenton Green (soph., 6-3, 172), Collin Perkins (soph., 5-8, 133)

Guards/Tackles: G. Black, N. Black, Crittenden, Finch, David Anderson (sr., 5-11, 181), Brody Heaney (sr., 6-4, 246), Colton Thomas (soph., 5-5, 195)

Centers: Terrence Benz (jr., 6-2, 246)

Kickers: Howard, Green, Otero

Defense

Ends: Anderson, G. Black, N. Black, Benz, Coleman, Green

Down Linemen/Tackles: Crittenden, Finch, Heaney, Thomas

Linebackers: Otero, Outman, Rahr, Ritter, Tocher

Defensive Backs: Campbell, Childs, Clark, Davis, Geffers, Howard, Perkins

THE SCHEDULE:

September

2 — at C.G. Finney/Northsar Christian, 1 p.m.

8 — Bolivar-Richburg, 7 p.m.

14 — Allegany-Limestone, 7 p.m.

23 — at Red Jacket, 7 p.m.

October

6 — at Holley, 7 p.m.

13 — Pembroke, 7 p.m.

20 — Caledonia-Mumford/Byron-Bergen, 7 p.m.

NEXT: Pioneer

Tim Keenan

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