No one was more eager for Kansas Wesleyan's spring football practices to begin than Matt Myers. The Coyotes' 15 sessions began Friday and continue into next month, culminating with a scrimmage April 23 at Graves Family Sports Complex.
For Myers it will afford some normalcy after a whirlwind offseason that began innocently enough following KWU's loss to eventual NAIA champion Morningside in the second round of the playoffs. The Coyotes finished with an 11-2 record, shared the Kansas Conference title with Southwestern at 9-1 – their third title in for years – and advanced to postseason play for third time in four years.
Things got interesting, though, shortly after Thanksgiving when Myers, KWU's defensive coordinator, was chosen the American Football Coaches Association's NAIA Assistant Coach of the Year. Just 17 days later (Dec. 17) he was promoted to head coach following Myers Hendrickson's departure to become head coach at Western Illinois.
In the three months since then he has assembled his staff, brought in 13 mid-season transfers, gotten his athletes situated academically, guided the team through "football school," embarked on a busy spring recruiting period, and coordinated winter strength and conditioning sessions.
Now comes the fun part.
"The last 10 weeks have been academics and weightlifting," Myers said. "The next four weeks our focus is getting our guys the reps they need to help them get better at their craft in their sport. We get to go out on the field and make it a good quality learning experience."
Several key players have departed since last season but the cupboard is far from bare. Spring practice began with 95 players including 82 holdovers from last season.
"I want to have fun," said Myers, who's in his seventh season as a KWU coach after playing linebacker for four years. "I want everyone to have the opportunity to perform at their position within our system. We brought in a new offensive coordinator (James Bauer) so some of those things on offense will be different. We'll be mixing it up on defense with some of the guys that have left and we'll see who steps into what role.
"That will be fun for me and should be fun for the guys to have risk-free reps. You're not winning a conference championship in the next four weeks; we're getting better at what we do and ideally carries into the fall."
COVID-19 forced the cancellation of spring practices in 2020 and 2021. KWU played three conference games in the spring of 2021 because of the pandemic.
"We spent a couple weeks getting to a normal spring, post COVID type stuff," Myers said. "Then back into the weight room which is a big deal because we haven't been able to do that in a long time. It's been two years since we've had a normal start to spring. It's been really good."
Myers, who worked for Matt Drinkall and Hendrickson as an assistant, says he plans to make a few changes.
"I would like to use the opportunity in the spring to vary our fronts defensively," he said. "Coverage is coverage but I would like to show different fronts. Offensively I know James is going to be changing up a few things making us as simple as humanly possible but go as fast as humanly possible with a few wrinkles to what he's done in the past (at Southwestern) and what we've done here in the past."
The offense will be led by a new quarterback after Isaiah Randalle (JR/Sacramento, Calif.), the starter the last two seasons, transferred. Tony White (JR/Cincinnati, Ohio), Randalle's back up last fall, returns along with Isaac Stanton (FR/Salina, Kan.), Ian Bock (JR/Alton, Ill.) and Silas Isaacs (FR/Konowa, Okla.). Javin Fish joined the squad during the holiday break after playing for Los Angeles Harbor College last season.
"We'll role out and see who performs," Myers said.
Wide receiver standouts Stevie Williams (SR/Los Angeles, Calif.) and Eren Jenkins (FR/Chicago, Ill.) are also gone but Myers likes what he's seen from the returning players.
"I feel really good about the wide receivers," he said. "We return guys who played for us – Patrick Germann, Jacquante Pitts (JR/Miami, Fla.), Drevon Macon (JR/Los Angeles, Calif.), A.J. Cooper. I don't have any concerns about those guys. They show up, they work hard."
Myers wants to make spring and fall practices important for everyone on the team, not just those who play on Saturdays.
"Guys who aren't getting reps on Saturday should be preparing to get those reps based on what might be needed," he said. "It might be for next year, it might be for two years from now, it might be for an injury.
"The way we practice will be very important to me in that aspect of making sure that we have a good ground base of younger student-athletes that will come up to our program and perform for us on Saturdays so that at the end of the day we can have a nice balance of recruiting transfers and freshmen."
Myers said his life hasn't changed too much, so far.
"It's been a lot of fun," he said. "The process doesn't necessarily change but the role changes. Now I do a lot more delegating which can sometimes be difficult. You don't want to micromanage.
"I want to give guys parameters and let then go attack it. I don't have the best ideas; I just know what the result should kind of look like."
The Coyotes open the 2022 season against Friends on Sept. 3 at Graves Family Sports Complex.