Under former head coach Scott Hawkins, the Thorndale Bulldog football team threw the ball only 28 times during the entire 2019 season.
Things changed with new head coach and Thorndale native John Kovar, as sophomore quarterback Coy Stutts threw the ball 30 times in one game alone when they fell to Jewett-Leon this past November.
With passing becoming a more common occurrence in Thorndale, Kovar has his team playing seven-on-seven this spring, which he says has been a process.
“A lot of our kids hadn’t caught or thrown the ball that much before last season just because we were running the Slot-T offense,” Kovar said. “It’s been a process because we haven’t really played seven-on-seven in a long time and we also didn’t want to take away from our spring sports.”
“Both our quarterbacks played catcher (Coy Stutts) and shortstop (Kaden Kovar) in a playoff baseball game less than a week earlier and a lot of our receivers ran at the regional track meet not too long before that so it’s a lot of getting kids used to playing,” he said.
Kovar also said the rain has been in the way of his players getting to practice for their upcoming qualifier tournaments.
“We’ve been trying to get out this week and let the kids throw the ball during the class period but our field’s pretty much under water right now,” Kovar said.
THIS WEEK—THS athletes play in the Rosebud-Lott state qualifier tournament Saturday with pool play starting at 8 a.m. and the state qualifying round beginning at 12:30 p.m.
Thorndale is in Pool B with Buffalo, New Waverly and Riesel. Pool A has Bruceville-Eddy, Chilton, Wortham and host Rosebud-Lott.
- Log in or Subscribe to post comments.