“There’s gonna be a lot of young kids having to step up this year, so it’s important that we just build slowly and work our way up,” said linebacker/guard Conor Dubin, one of only four seniors, who, with two years of varsity under his belt, is the most experienced player on the team. “I think it’s going well.”
The spring session was the first chance for Skaggs to begin to locate and appraise candidates to fill the Rebels’ vacancies at quarterback, tailback, fullback and wide receiver, as well as plugging various other holes on both sides of the ball.
“We’re really, really young, but not without talent,” said Skaggs, whose biggest losses to his Wing-T offense are backfield weapons Joel Bryant and Adam Ross, who alternated between the fullback and tailback positions. “There’s a lot of talent with the youngsters coming up and a lot of speed, which we’re all excited about.”
Eric Kazangian is an early candidate to fill the fullback spot and Jacob Steenwick will get a run at tailback, but Skaggs is also high on the skill set Jordan Whaley, who’s also in a competition with junior Kyle McDonald for the quarterback position vacated by the graduation of Gus Herrera.
“Jordan’s so valuable at running back for us and we’re largely a run-based attack, so we’re just gonna let him emerge in those two positions and play and then we’ll make some decisions in August as to where he may be better suited for us,” Skaggs said of Whaley, who will pull double duty at linebacker. “But if he ends up playing the quarterback spot, he’s just a dynamic player. He can throw, he’s obviously a great runner and we really haven’t had that kind of dual threat at the quarterback position since I’ve been here.”
