You can’t rightly call it a honeymoon period just yet.
At present, old school Woodland High School fans, weened mostly on pro-style football, are still in the process of warming up to their team’s latest, really old school offense.
Chris Smith, the Wolves’ latest first-year head coach and a purveyor of the double wing, one of the offenses favored by coach Glenn “Pop” Warner (yes, that Pop Warner) back in the early 1900s, spent the summer familiarizing the Wolves with his system.
To hear coach Smith tell it, players and system seem to be getting on famously. Judging by the reaction he saw last Saturday at Woodland’s three-team scrimmage, during which the Wolves scored touchdowns on the regular, fans and system likely aren’t far behind.
“In our scrimmage, when our guys did their jobs, it worked just like the coaches promised,” said senior Jonathan Tripp.
“The coaches know what they’re doing. As long as we do our part, they’ll win the game for us. That’s how I look at it.”
But Smith knows fans are notoriously more fickle than players. The proof to them will be in the regular-season pudding, which begins Friday when Woodland visits American Canyon at 7:30 p.m.
“I don’t think they’re married to it yet,” Smith said of Woodland’s fan base. But that statement came after he related the good news.
“We haven’t heard any complaints. We had a really good reception from the fans and the community (at the scrimmage). They had a lot to cheer, they saw a lot of scoring on Saturday.
“If they can get behind the scoring and get excited trying to figure out where the football is, they’re going to be happy.”
If Smith sounds confident his shell game of an offense can produce more points and more wins than the Wolves have had in each of their last two seasons, both of which with them sporting a 3-7 record, it’s only because that’s what he’s been doing his entire 20-plus year career.
Some of his stops include an assistant position at Bloomington High of Los Angeles in the early ‘90s, where he learned under double-wing guru Don Markham, a head coaching spot at Vacaville Christian in the early 2000s, where he won a Division VII Sac-Joaquin Section title, and most recently the head coaching position at Esparto in 2014 and 2015.
At Esparto, Smith took a program which was 0-20 the previous two seasons, went 13-9 and reached the Northern Section playoffs both seasons. Last year the Spartans averaged 40.9 points per game through the regular season and topped the 60-point mark three times, including a high of 77.
By contrast, Woodland a year ago never topped the 27-point mark under coach Michael Brewster, who was let go after one season.
“I’ve been on varsity three years and every year I’ve had a new coach,” said senior Elias Ruby, assessing his experience so far under coach Smith. “I can tell you from the last two years, we weren’t as much as a team (as now). Everyone was doing their own little thing.
“This year we’re more as a unit, more together.”
So what makes Smith’s version of the double wing tick? Simplicity, for one thing. When the Wolves take on American Canyon, they will likely go with some variation of the offense’s four main running plays — tosses to the two wing backs, which to start for Woodland will be junior Oscar Sanchez and Tripp, sweeps and misdirections also featuring the wings, and a fullback trap to junior Martin Vasquez or senior AT Triana.
“I haven’t run it for awhile. First time bringing it back since I was in the little leagues. I liked it,” Ruby said.
“It won games. It got the job done.”
The offensive set is tight; the fullback is lined up close behind the quarterback, which will likely be Christian Stice to start, but could also be Ruben Morales or, by midseason, Carston Gunter, a transfer from Pioneer. All are juniors.
Stice played all over the field for the Wolves last year after he became eligible following his transfer from Elk Grove. He quarterbacked the last part of the Wolves’ 21-13 win over Pioneer, but the plays he was charged with running were nothing like this.
“I’m pretty comfortable with it. It’s nothing too out of the box,” he said.
“It’s just like I said, it’s something new, so we’re just going to have to wait and see how it goes.”
The wings line up close to the duo of tight ends Ruby and junior Hunter Chriss. And just when the defense is concentrating too much on the ground game, Diego Villanueva, another junior, will be out wide ready to make plays as a receiver.
“We look for him to contribute a lot,” Smith said.
The pool offensive linemen, Smith said, “are probably the best combination of guys I’ve had in a long time, and that’s saying a lot.” They include junior David Grant, senior Estevan Abarca, junior Ethan Young and senior Justin Borchard.
Most of the offensive starters will also start on defense — Ruby, Vasquez and Tripp as linebackers, Stice and Sanchez defensive backs, Villanueva as a corner back along with senior Truman Linney, etc.
“The defense, we think, is just as solid,” Smith said.
The one name missing from this year’s mix, notwithstanding graduation losses from last season, is one who presumably could have thrived as a senior. Nolan Dahler, a two-year starter for Woodland as a running back and run-first quarterback, was absent during the Wolves’ summer workouts and is not on their roster. According to his former teammates, the shoulder injuries which shortened both of Dahler’s previous Wolves seasons have caused him to abandon his high school football career.
Still, Smith is confident he has a “bevy of backs” and good enough talent at other positions to compensate.
“We just worked our tails off (during the summer) because our offense is very demanding and our defense is very demanding,” he said. “We’re happy with the kids who have shown up.”
