The Smithville Review caught up with DeKalb County head football coach Steve Trapp this week to get an insight on the upcoming football season.
SR: Last season the team had a great run and a successful season. What do you feel like you need to do to top last year’s accomplishments?
ST: We take it year by year. Of course, there are a lot of good things we can take from last year and carry over into this coming year. This is a new year and this is a new team. We say that every year. We don't want to rest on what we accomplished last year. Like the year before, it wasn’t a big success so we definitely didn’t want to rest on that. We tell our guys each and every time we get the opportunity to have a new season that we focus on being better than the day before. We always want to get better.
Coming into the new season, we have a lot of experience coming back. A lot of players coming back that have multiple years of starting experience. We had a small senior class last year. We only had five guys. Each and everyone of these guys played a big role in our success last year, but we feel that we have got those vacancies covered, except for the kicking game.
Right now, if you asked what our abiggest weakness would be, it would be trying to get our kicking game where it has been for the last four years. Zach Taylor did a tremendous job for us in that regard, but right now I would classify that as our biggest weakness. Our biggest strength would be the experience we have got coming back. The amount of guys on both sides of the ball. The biggest thing is, is that it’s not the same guys. We have got eight returning starters on both sides of the ball. So, we have that experience we need and the depth if we need that.
SR: So would it be safe to say that the special teams will be your most troubled positions to fill?
ST: Yes, the kicking game, Zach Taylor was eight of 10 in field goals last year. His longest was 47 yards. He had four field goals that were 40 yards or longer, not to mention what he was doing on kick-offs. He was kicking them in the end zone or pinning them inside of the five-yard line. So opposing teams had a long field to go the majority of the time. We didn’t give up a single punt return yard last year, and it wasn’t because Zach was booming punts. It was that he would give us a 40-yard punt that was high and our coverage team had time to go get under it and cover.
So right now our biggest concern is finding a punter and a kicker. We have got a bigger roster this year, so hopefully somebody we have on our roster that can step in and fill that void. We just have to find that person.
SR: You have a big senior class coming up this year. Who do you think needs to step up and be that team leader that you lost with last year’s seniors?
ST: Everybody. Each and everyone of them. We talk to our guys every year about leadership and what it means to be a leader and first and foremost we feel that in order for our guys to be leaders they have to lead by example first. They have to show up every day. They have to show great character on and off the field. And ultimately do what the coaches are demanding that they do with the correct attitude and the correct effort. If our upperclassmen are doing that then, we feel that our younger guys that are coming in and will be taking their spot in a few years will understand what it takes and understand what “TIGER PRIDE” is all about and they will learn that from watching these upperclassmen do the work that we require them to do.
Now the next level in the leadership role is once you are doing the first level correctly, then you can be more of a vocal leader because you can’t lead someone else if you’re not willing to do the work the way it is supposed to be done in the first place. We tell our eighth-graders coming in they can be leaders. They can be leaders just by the way they conduct themselves on and off the field. If they stay with it for four years, they will evolve into that next leadership role we talked about.
We have a lot of guys coming back like Lucas Phillips, this is his third year at starting quarterback and he is definitely the leader of our offense. Everything goes through him, he understands why we are calling the plays when we call them. Will Molander is a big-time playmaker for us. He leads through his actions. Our entire offensive line is back. They are all seniors, some of those guys have played and started three years together so we feel like they will have good chemistry together. We have got 24 seniors right now and I believe 13 of those guys are four-year starters. And three or four of them are three-year starters, so we feel we have the experience but we have got to go out and prove it this fall.
SR: Do you expect anyone to have a breakout season?
ST: Lucas had great season last year but I think he is going to top what he did last year and I know he has the capabilities to do that. And it’s not just because of Lucas. We are returning our whole offensive line, our receiving core. Sonni Young is back playing with us this year, he didn’t play with us last year. His freshman and sophomore season he was on pace to be the most prolific receiver in DeKalb County history. So I expect Sonni to have a really big year.
SR: Do you expect any freshman to come in and make an immediate impact?
ST: I don’t have any rule saying they are not going to play. I tell them it is a developmental process. But if we have any freshman that are physical enough and mentally tough enough to play on Friday nights and play better than somebody else, then we will have those guys out there.
SR: Outside of wins and losses, what do you feel you have to do this year to consider it a success?
ST: Lots of teams and people measure their success in wins and losses and that's fair enough. It looks better when you win games but that's not our ultimate goal. Our number-one goal out here as a coaching staff is to help develop our young people and help their parents develop young people and help develop great character because we feel with great character they will do what it takes to get the result that we want.
SR: What do you want to accomplish as the head coach here?
ST: We want to be consistent. We want to be consistently in the play-offs and consistently at the top of our district. This year I feel like we have the opportunity to do things that have never been done before and we want to win. Winning is not our message. Our message is do what it takes to get the result you want. If you want to win, bust your butt in the weight room; if you want to win, prepare Monday through Thursday. We just don’t want to lose sight of what it takes to get what we want because if we do then we may not get what we want.
Tigers prepare for new season

