Texans kick off two-a-days

The 2021 season has officially kicked off for the Wimberley Texan football team as they took to the field this week.

The third ranked team in the Dave Campbell Texas Football’s preseason will look to capture their third straight regional title and win their first district championship since 2017.

All eyes will be on the offense once again as Wimberley looks to replace several starters including having to find a new starting quarterback.

“We’ve got three players that we are looking at right now,” Head Football coach Doug Warren said.

“All three have their strengths and weaknesses, and all play a little bit differently. We’ve got Cash McCollum who quarterbacked our freshman team and has grown a lot and had a great spring and summer and throws the ball nicely. Tyler Ross who moved in and is a senior, who is learning the offense but is a very dynamic athlete who throws a nice ball as well… and you got Dane Hennisee who was one of our JV quarterbacks last year. He has really grown a lot and maybe throws the ball the best out of the three.”

“We are just letting them compete,” Warren continued. “All three of them are going to be good quarterbacks and you can’t have enough good quarterbacks. It’s a great problem to have, so we are going to let them compete and see who gives the best opportunity to win the ballgame.”

The new starter won’t be short on offensive weapons as the Texans return some key starters from last year, especially in the run game.

“When you look at the rest of the offense,” Warren said. “There are four offensive lineman who played significantly last year, Hector Herrera, Reese Randig, Noah Hausecker, and Ethan Lancaster. Those four started for us last year so you’ve got to lean on them. At the running back spot we are very healthy with Moses Wray, Chris Schatte and Kerrick Lai.”

“The spot you look at that might be a little bit thin is the receiver spot,” Warren continued.

“But I like who we have out there, and I like the talent we have. It’s just they haven’t shown it on Friday night yet.”

But as some of the offensive spots look to reload, the vaunted “Code Red” defense looks to be back in force with eight returning starters.

“They (the defense) take a lot of pride in being in the Code Red defense,” Warren said.

“When you have eight guys who contributed on that side of the ball significantly, they are going to be the natural leadership of the group. I expect those guys to carry the team for a little while while we are breaking in a new quarterback. I have high hopes for them, and they are going to be a very good defense.”

As the expectations of Wimberley football will always be high, the goal for the team is to take it one step at a time as Warren explained.

“The main thing for this group number one is to take it week by week, day by day. It’s about worrying about yourself, and we are going to get better. We have five really tough teams to start off with but we are going to be the best team as we could be. The one thing we’ve been able to do for the last few years is to continually be better which allowed us to make those deep runs. I like where this team is heading, the leadership we have to take us down that road, and we just have to be better each day.”

Wimberley is set to scrimmage Lago Vista this Friday in Lago Vista.