North Vermilion Patriots
2021 Record: 2-8
District: 4-4A
Head Coach: Brett Blakey
Note: Switching from spread to Wing T offense
North Vermilion got off to a rocky start in 2021, beginning the year 0-5. But the patriots lost four of those games by less than a touchdown.
The main issue: Turnovers. The Pats averaged close to 2 giveaways a game for the season.
"We had probably somewhere around 16 to 20 turnovers. 4-5 of those were defensive scores," North Vermilion Head Coach Brett Blakey said. "So when you're talking about a 1 score game, giving the ball to the other team no matter who it is, makes a big difference."
"Friday night, our defense, we get on the field a lot with turnovers," North Vermilion senior safety/running back Kiaron Rudd explained. "We need to turnover the ball less, he's said it plenty of times. We need to make plays on offense to give our defense some type of break."
North Vermilion embarks on 2022 with 15 starters returning, including 8 on defense.
The Patriots have run a spread offense under Head Coach Brett Blakey, but are switching to the Wing T this season.
The Pats are hoping the new system will not only help to cut down on turnovers, but also give them some competitive mismatches in their new District 4-4A that features recent state champs like STM, LCA and Westgate
"Moving forward with the spread, no matter how good we got, it was always going to be difficult to outspread Teurlings and STM," Brett Blakey explained. "It's always going to be difficult to out-athlete Westgate and LCA. It just goes back to we have to find something that gives our kids the best advantage to be competitive in those games."
"I wanted to switch to Wing T last year. I really wanted to play running back," North Vermilion senior RB/S Ethan Frederick added. "We have a lot of athletes. If we're in Wing T, we get the athletes the ball and we can work around them and get them into space."
North Vermilion's first tests of the year will come against Vermilion Parish foes, when they take on Kaplan, Erath and Abbeville.
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