Vernon football looking for young players to step up this season

VERNON – The Vernon football team is extremely young this season. Out of the 22 players on their roster on MaxPreps, nine of them are freshman. 

“ItÂ’s gonna be a lot different. WeÂ’re gonna be totally opposite. I think itÂ’s gonna be good, I like it,” Vernon senior quarterback Kaden Tharp said. 

Their roster lost a lot of good talent last season in KÂ’Wan Powell, Dyvion Bush and Marcus Hammack, but they hope the young talent will step up and fill the void.

“I think it is the freshman, these guys have stepped up and played, a lot of them have to play a lot so itÂ’s probably our young core being able to do much more things than you think they would be able to do,” Vernon senior defensive end Brycen Thornton said. 

The seniors want to make sure the young guys are ready as they can be for Friday nights. 

“Building a program with the younger guys and I guess leading them in the way to become better players than what theyÂ’ve previously been and showing them the ropes,” Vernon senior defensive end Reid Hammack said. 

The Yellowjackets not only look different in their roster, but theyÂ’ll look different in what they do on the field too. 

Vernon head coach Gerald Tranquille said they are really going be doing some ground and pound football this season. 

“Last year our strength was probably on the skill position. This year we have some bigger offensive lineman even the young guys are fairly big so we just wanted to tailor our offense to who we had this year,” Tranquille said. 

Even though this season is a new one, the team still remembers how last yearÂ’s 6-2 season ended. 

It was in the region finals, a one point loss to the 1A State Champions, the Baker Gators. 

“48 seconds. They scored with 48 seconds left, so weÂ’ve really been really harping on that, 48 seconds to finish, to not stop, to not be offsides to do the little things, every inch, every second, every mile counts. We were 48 seconds away last year from possibly playing for a state championship,” Tranquille said. 

Although this Vernon team may be young, they are definitely still hungry for victories. 

“They still want to go out on Friday nights and compete and win ball games so as far as IÂ’m concerned they still want to win and carry this program to new heights,” Tranquille said. 

Vernon played at Liberty County in their kickoff classic on Friday night and will open the season with Walton on August 27.