After a plethora of offseason changes, Napa is ready to vie for league title in shortened spring season
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Don Lex (LuckyDuckImages.com)
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Last season, the Napa High football team saw a turnaround. But as they enter the spring season, there is a lot of change heading into the new season.
The Grizzlies went 7-4 overall with a 4-2 record in the Vine Valley Athletic League, which helped them make a return to the playoffs. In the CIF North Coast Section Division 2 playoffs, they saw their season come to an end against Clayton Valley Charter of Concord 35-9 in the first round.
Napa will return a bunch of players that saw a large amount of playing time last season. The top returner is Jack Giguiere. They’ll also return Cole Lex, Brodie Jacque, Thomas Hatton, Rudy Hernandez, Hunter St. Clair, Anthony Tubridy, Issac Rojas, Benito Saldivar, and Trey Dennis.
When it comes to who will start at quarterback, four guys could win the job. The most experienced of the group are St. Clair and Tubridy.
“I’d say we have four good quarterbacks right now and it’s up in the air,” Napa head coach Askari Adams emphasized. “I don’t think one person has an edge over the other. It’s two older guys, two younger guys. They’re out there battling every day.”
However, entering a new season always brings about new challenges. But this season may be the biggest season of changes to get used to for the Grizzlies.
The changes
The first new change is the fact that the season is being played so late into the school year due to the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Since conditioning restarted over the summer, the team had been broken up into pods. The whole group got together when pads were allowed a few weeks ago.
“I know it’s difficult at first because we were just separated from everyone on the team,” Giguiere said of the move out of pods. “We were just kind of with our positions. It was definitely something that you had to adjust to.”
There is also a new coach leading the way. In the offseason, Richie Wessman moved on. This means Askari Adams will be the head coach. He’ll be Napa’s fifth new head coach in as many seasons.
“It’s different. Being the defensive coordinator and then now being the head coach,” Adams explained. “It’s a lot more responsibility.”
It hasn’t been that bad of a transition since Adams served as the defensive coordinator last season. This means he already knows his players as they enter the season.
“Honestly, all the coaches made it pretty easy,” Giguiere added. “I already knew coach Adams, so it wasn’t like we had a head coach coming in that we didn’t know. It’s been a pretty easy transition.”
Another thing that will be new for Napa is having to play a game without Brock Bowers. In December, Bowers signed his National Letter of Intent to play football at the University of Georgia. He also graduated early to participate in spring football at the university.
“You lose a guy like Brock, it hurts,” Adams explained. “But we have great athletes, great kids, and kids are stepping up right now, looking great in practice.”
Finally, there’s the fact that the VVAL will play a league-only schedule. That also means there won’t be any nonleague portion of the season. There also won’t be any playoffs this season either.
While it won’t be a challenge now, they will also have to figure out what it will look like to go right into the start of a new season in May and what it will look like.
“We’re just looking at this season,” Adams said. “This season is what’s in front of us. That’s what we’re dealing with and that’s what we want to take care of.”
The schedule
When games start on March 12th, Napa will have the first bye. It’s not something that they’re too concerned about because it gives them
“For me, it’s just another way to prepare,” Giguiere explained.
“It gives us a chance to prepare and get our feet on the ground,” Adams added on the early bye week. “We may not have that first week of competition like everyone else, but we are scrimmaging that weekend.”
When they finally do play, they’ll be doing plenty of traveling. Their first three games will all be on the road.
“No one likes being on the road and I wish I can play five games,” Adams said of the road stretch to begin the season. “But it’s the way that our schedule was and we’ve just got to play the game. That’s our schedule. But we still get our last few games at home and, you know, finish up the season, which is fine with me.”
On March 19th, they’ll begin their season with a road trip to American Canyon. Last season, Napa suffered a 14-7 loss to the Wolves, so they’ll be looking for revenge.
The following week the Grizzlies will again be on the road when they face crosstown rival Justin-Siena. Last year, the game was closer than the score indicated. In the end, Napa came away with a 42-14 victory.
On April 2nd, Napa will play their final road game of the season, which is also their only out-of-county game when they visit Petaluma. Napa beat Petaluma 49-7 in their meeting last year at Memorial Stadium.
Napa will finally play a home game on April 9th when they host Casa Grande-Petaluma.
The final game of the season will be as it normally is for Napa when they serve as the home team for Big Game XLIV (49). In last year’s Big Game, Napa suffered a 26-20 defeat.
Due to the short season and byes, Napa won’t face Sonoma Valley this season. It was a game Adams was looking forward to because former running backs coach Clay Jackson is the new head coach at Sonoma.
“I got to know Clay really well and he’s the head coach over there,” Adams said. “It would be nice to play against him.”
For Giguiere, it’s more about just missing out on the opportunity to get in one more game.
“It sucks we can’t play. We want to play as many games as possible,” he explained. “But it’s just another thing that you can’t control.”
New additions to the coaching staff
It wouldn’t be a new season if there wasn’t a few new additions to the staff.
On the varsity staff, Jeff Cheek will be the new offensive coordinator. Cheek previously served as the offensive coordinator at Los Angeles Valley College and Briar Cliff University in Sioux City, Iowa. Val Jenkins will replace Jackson as the running backs coach and also serve as the strength and conditioning coach.
Returning to lead the JV after a year away is Jerry Harris. Harris is no stranger to the Napa High football program after being a coach there up to 2019.
Another addition to JV is Pat O’Brien who is also the school’s JV softball coach. She joined the program after Adams helped coach softball last spring.
The last addition to the JV staff is Tyler Clark who graduated in 2020 from Napa High. Clark will help out with the wide receivers and defensive backs.
