High school offenses still struggling to reach ‘midseason form’

It’s common to hear coaches speak early in the season about how their defense is ahead of the offense.

Usually by midseason, however, both sides of the ball are playing at their peak. At least, that’s the goal for a team to get into “midseason form.”

But after a year off and with all the issues surrounding this season that have taken players and teams off the field, the offenses haven’t quite caught up — even with only four weeks left in the regular season.

“The level of play is pretty much the same as usual, but the offenses aren’t as potent as they were in years past,” Foothill coach Vernon Brown said. “They’re still good, but not as good as in years past. I think that’s why you see a lot of low-scoring games in the valley this season.”

It makes sense that offenses would come along slower. There are simply more moving parts to most offenses, which makes for a greater learning curve. Teams with less experienced players — which is the vast majority of them this season — take time to develop chemistry and timing, especially in the passing game.

Coaches have been forced to remind themselves that the players had a year off and to allow them to develop at their own pace.

“When you’re doing this for so many consecutive years, you know where you should be at this time of the year,” Las Vegas coach Erick Capetillo said. “We’ve had to do it at a different pace. We lost valuable reps during the past year, but there’s nothing you can do to speed up the process.”

While most teams didn’t get the chance to play last season, they were allowed to have padded practices during the spring and some went to camps over the summer.

That didn’t make up for the lost time of missing a full season, but it gave coaches a chance to get the players moving again.

“Having spring practice was a big deal for us,” Spring Valley coach Marcus Teal said. “The kids were locked up, so to speak, in their house for 18 months. Getting them back out and dealing with the football aspect of things was hard. We spent a month, month and a half just on conditioning.”

Some of the teams that have been potent offensively are ones with experienced players in key positions. That’s the case for Desert Oasis and Silverado in Class 4A and Desert Pines in 5A, who all returned their starting quarterback.

Desert Oasis QB Tyler Stott leads the valley with 1,623 yards passing and 21 touchdown passes. Brandon Tunnell has thrown for eight TDs and run for three for Silverado, and Rjay Tagataese has completed 64.4 percent of his passes for 911 yards and 11 touchdowns with one interception despite Desert Pines having had two games canceled.

Those three teams are 12-2 and averaging 41.7 points combined.

Foothill doesn’t have its quarterback from two years ago, and it has only one player with varsity experience. But Brown never worried about where to go with the ball, not with do-it-all threat Kendric Thomas on the roster. He wanted Thomas to get the ball as much as possible, and the senior has responded with 400 yards rushing and five TDs and 98 yards receiving and 2 TDs in three games.

“That’s exactly what’s been happening,” said Brown, whose Falcons are 2-1 with two cancellations. “His experience, that helps, along with the talent. We’ve been waiting for some other guys to step up, and they’re starting to, but we expect (Thomas) to keep getting the ball a lot.”

Teal said there were days when the youth on the field showed during preseason practices. At those times, he tried to remind himself that the Grizzlies weren’t the only ones who had a long way to go.

“I’m one of the longest-tenured coaches in the (Southern Nevada Football Coaches Association), and I talked to some of the others about what was going on with their teams,” Teal said. “It was frustrating in the beginning, but I did feel a little better when (the other guys) that we have relationships with said they were going through the same things.”

Contact Jason Orts at jorts@reviewjournal.com. Follow @SportsWithOrts on Twitter.