As Neosho coach Brandon Taute heads into his second season at the helm of the Wildcats, his focus continues to circle around shifting the culture of the past in a positive direction.
“We have taken huge steps forward as a team,” Taute said. “Being able to have them in the weight room for an entire year and having a full offseason program, we’ve been able to get our culture and standards entrenched in the kids. We’ve made huge steps in that regard and are leaps and bounds ahead of where we were a year ago.”
Though Neosho finished with a 1-9 record last season, the Wildcats did see an 18-game losing streak come to an end with a win over Willard in October. With a year in the system for the returning Wildcats, Taute has already seen vast improvements from this time a year ago.
“I am extremely excited,” Taute said. “We’ve got a good group of kids who have been working really hard and have done a ton in the offseason, a lot of team-building stuff. I have gotten to know these kids a lot more than I did a year ago. So, I am excited to watch them go out there to compete and have some success.”
Neosho returns 11 starters back to the varsity squad, with eight of them coming along the offensive side of the ball.
“Having those kids back is huge because they have the experience of playing under the Friday night lights and you can’t replicate that no matter what you do,” Taute said. “For those kids to have played in those moments, that is going to give them an advantage. And, we are going to have a lot of young kids out there who are going to need to lean on those kids with experience who have been through it. We are going to count on those returners to be leaders and to teach the new kids, take them under their wings a little bit and get them ready for the moment.”
Offensively, the Wildcats welcome back junior QB Quenton Hughes, senior RB Jared Siler, senior WR Isaiah Green, senior WR Collyn Kivett, senior WR Brock Franklin, junior WR Cade Camerer, senior OL Carter Baslee and junior OL William Velasco.
“It’s not very often you bring back all of your skill guys on offense,” Taute said. “Getting all of that experience back is huge for an offense, especially when it’s still a new system to everybody. … We just understand the offense a lot better, so we are going to be able to do a little bit more than what we were able to do last year in terms of throwing in some wrinkles and adjustments for games. We are going to be able to execute at a higher level.”
On defense, Neosho returns a starter at every level in senior DL Nico Olivares, junior LB Zak Goff and senior DB Aiden Howell. Of course, with only three returning starters on the defensive side of the ball, there may be some growing pains early as players gain their footing under the Friday night lights. That is where the luxury of having experience at each level of the defense pays off.
“We have a lot of new faces on the defense,” Taute said. “But, they all have somebody they can go to, a leader, that has played that position or someone they can turn to for knowledge or answers on the field. We will do the best we can to prepare them for that moment but at the end of the day, it’s the 11 guys on the field that matter.
“We just want to get better every week on defense. We’ve been preaching to rally to the football, play with high energy and be physical. If we can do those three things, we are going to have success.”
Neosho opens the season hosting Willard at 7 p.m. on Friday.
