The NKyTribune will be providing focused coverage of NKY high school football throughout the season, thanks to support from St. Elizabeth Healthcare Sports Medicine. See all of our pre-season features on each of NKY’s 21 high school football teams and follow our coverage, including roundups each week at Northern Kentucky High School Football.
By Tom Ramstetter
NKyTribune contributor
Chad Montgomery and his staff went back to the film after last season and analyzed most of Dayton’s football games together, looking for answers.
“We were inside the red zone 28 times and only scored on eight of those,” Montgomery said. “That was our biggest problem. It wasn’t moving the football. It was putting points on the board.”
Seth Chinn is competing for the starting quarterback position on the Dayton football team. (Photo by Terry Boehmker)
The Greendevils finished the season with a 1-10 record and lost in first round of the Class 1A playoffs. Dayton did not score in seven of the 10 losses and was shut out in five of the final six games of the season.
“We would go on long 10- and 12-play drives,” Montgomery said. “There were lots of factors. We would turn the ball over, get stupid penalties like long 10-yard holding penalties, and just a lack of execution.”
The coaching staff isn’t changing the offense for the 2016 season. The Greendevils will again look to run the ball first and chew up much of the clock with a stout ground game behind a large offensive line made up of four-year starters. The team will just seek to finish drives at a much higher rate.
“We can’t be turning the ball over as much as we did and can’t let it get in our heads much,” said junior Seth Chinn, one of the players competing for the quarterback job this summer. “It would get in our heads and that would lead to turnovers. It’s like we ran out of energy when it counts.”
Dayton has nine starters back on both offense and defense, including everybody on the offensive line. Chin and junior running backs Maverick Thomas and Xavier Hundemer will get a lot of touches when their team has the ball.
“We feel pretty confident in what we do on the offensive side of the ball,” Montgomery said. “It’s just a matter of fixing what we’ve been working on and trying to get better at it. We put some new stuff in over the offseason, but it will still be pretty much our base offense.
“We will be big, probably with one of the biggest offensive lines in Class A football. We don’t have a lot of speed, so our philosophy is to eat up as much clock as we can and hold on to the football. Have some long and sustained drives. We’re not fast, so we won’t be explosive, but we will be pretty big.”
The biggest change will be a new quarterback. Chinn played the position in youth football and on junior varsity at Dayton. He’d like to win the job, but scoring and winning are foremost in his mind.
“As long as we score, that’s all I’m worried about,” Chinn said.
The Greendevils are not expecting the quarterback to throw for 300 yards per game. He just needs to be efficient. Dylan Adams threw 18 interceptions and only five touchdown passes in 2015. That has to change.
“We like to use the old Trent Dilfer philosophy in that we just want him to be able to manage the game and try not to do too much,” Montgomery said, referring to a former NFL quarterback. “Let the game come to him. He doesn’t always have to hit a home run, just play the next play.”
If they stay healthy, Chinn and his teammates believe they’ll contend for the No. 2 seed in the local Class 1A district behind perennial power Beechwood.
“Our goal every year is to try to host a playoff game,” Montgomery said. “We all know that Beechwood is the cream of the crop in Class A. Anybody can be beaten in any week. But our goal is to try to get a home playoff game and wrap up that No. 2 seed.”
DAYTON GREENDEVILS
2015 SEASON: 1-10 record, lost in first round of Class 1A playoffs.
DISTRICT: Class 1A, District 4 with Beechwood, Bellevue and Ludlow.
HEAD COACH: Chad Montgomery (10-15 in five seasons at Dayton).
2016 SCHEDULE
Aug. 19 – BROSSART, 7 p.m.
Aug. 26 – BELLEVUE, 7 p.m.
Sept. 2 – at Pendleton County, 7:30 p.m.
Sept. 9 – at New Miami (Ohio), 7 p.m.
Sept. 23 – BRACKEN COUNTY, 7:30 p.m.
Sept. 30 – at Eminence, 7:30 p.m.
Oct. 7 – at Ludlow, 7 p.m.
Oct. 14 – at Bellevue, 7 p.m.
Oct. 21 – BEECHWOOD, 7 p.m.
Oct. 28 – CARROLL COUNTY, 7:30 p.m.
Other NKyTribune prep football previews:
Conner
Dixie Heights
Walton-Verona
Holmes
Ryle
Bellevue
Brossart
Covington Catholic
