MASSILLON It didn’t take long for the mantle of leadership for Massillon’s football team to be passed from the Class of 2013 to the Class of 2014.
“It started Saturday night at about 10:30,” Tiger coach Jason Hall said, referring to the time when his team’s 2012 season came to an end in a regional-championship loss to Whitmer last week.
To those players who were juniors this season, the task is a sizable one. All they are being asked to do is follow in the footsteps of a senior class that Hall called, in his final huddle with his team on the field in Mansfield, the best he’s ever had as a coach.
But it’s much more than that for those Tigers — even those who won’t be seniors next season. This past season, they were part of a team that went 11-2; beat McKinley not just once, but twice; and advanced to the regional championship game.
The problem for them is, they don’t get to start next season where they ended the last one. That doesn’t mean the expectations won’t be the same for them, even in their own locker room, despite all the graduation losses to hit the roster.
“I think our goals will stay the same,” Hall said. “They’re high. We want to beat McKinley. We want to win our region. We want to win a state championship. Those are our goals.
“I feel like we have a great group coming back. We have a great group of young players — the sophomore class, the freshman class and the junior class have a lot of guys. I really think that the team’s expectations will be set on how they approach the offseason.”
It is in the offseason where this season’s Tigers set the tone for their sensational season. Buoyed by a mantra of playing 15 weeks, they attacked their weight-lifting and conditioning program with a ferocity, trying to make amends for the way their 2011 season ended with a last-minute loss at McKinley to knock them out of a playoff berth.
Now, Massillon heads into the offseason having managed to secure that postseason trip, but were unable to complete its stated goal of playing 15 weeks, of playing for a state championship. So, for Hall, that makes this offseason’s stated goal a whole lot like the one stated entering the last offseason.
“I don’t think it ever changes,” Hall said. “We set a lot of goals, but, at the end of the day, you have to finish. We have to finish what we started, and we didn’t do that. I think our guys finishing is going to be a big key.”
Nowhere did the offseason program show itself in terms of on-the-field productivity than among the Tigers’ sophomores. That class produced no fewer than a half-dozen players who didn’t just play bit parts, but major roles for Massillon.
J.D. Crabtree emerged as arguably the team’s top-producing defensive lineman, with 17.5 tackles for loss and six sacks. Devon Williams started 12 of the Tigers’ 13 games at quick tackle, while Nick Bushman filled in admirably at guard, both against McKinley in Week 10 and Nordonia in the first round of the playoffs.
Mike Smith was a key player in the safety rotation, as well as one of the Tigers’ top kickoff return men. Andrew David, meanwhile, has been one of the area’s top kickers each of the last two seasons.
It is those sophomores and their meteoric rise into varsity regulars that Hall is counting on to serve as a teaching point for this year’s freshmen as they begin working toward their own sophomore seasons next year. Many of those freshmen, who were part of an undefeated freshman team this fall, managed to spend the last three weeks practicing with the Tiger varsity during the playoffs.
“I’ve said it all along, for a sophomore to get on the field, they’ve got to physically be ready,” Hall said. “I think those young guys that played this year, they showed that a great offseason can help you get on the field and have a role on the varsity team. If anything, it really shows those younger guys that hard work can pay off as a sophomore, all those hours. Hopefully, that’s motivation for them.”
