New changes, different outcome? The West High Football team hired four new varsity football coaches for the 2024 season. After a 5-4 record and barely missing the playoffs last season, the team hopes these new additions will lead to more success and another playoff berth this year. However, they have already hit a roadblock, as they lost 20-28 to city rival Davenport North Friday, Aug. 30 and again to Bettendorf 8-49 on Friday, Sep. 6. With other tough opponents down the road, the team has a long way to go if they want to achieve a third straight winning season and a second playoff berth in the last three years.
“Anytime you lose a game it’s tough, … It’s only week two and it shouldn’t define our season,” quarterback coach Brian Schutte said.
Despite the tough loss, there are still seven more weeks of football left to play, and these two losses should not define their season. In fact, they should be even more motivated through the rest of the season to turn it around.
“There ain’t no time to have down spirits, … you felt like you gave a game away, … and that in and of itself is motivation to go out and execute better, be more disciplined, especially with the pre snap stuff, and try to put a complete game together,” linebacker coach Eric Johnson said.
As the team moves on from this tough loss, the new coaches in the West High program look to build on from last week and hope that their different backgrounds and strengths can help the team going forward.
“Being, like a recent player, I’m not super older than the players right now, so I guess I can kind of relate to them being in their shoes just a few years ago. So I think that’s really my advantage, I guess as a coach, is just being young and being able to relate to these games,” wide receiver coach Israel Taylor said.
While some new coaches use their previous connections to Davenport as their strengths, others use hard work and discipline to try and instill a winning mentality into the program.
“Just wanna win, want everyone to have a winning mentality and be able to pass it down to JV, sophomores, and freshman, … I’m a little tougher on my guys because that’s how I was coached, so I’m coaching how I was coached,” defensive back coach Emmanuel Hamilton said.
With a winning mentality being instilled into the program, it requires an equal level of commitment from the players throughout the rest of the season.
“Keep your heads up. It’s just one loss, … we gotta win this game to have chances of making the playoffs,” junior Carson Huggins said.
It is just one loss after all, and with seven weeks left in the season, time will tell if this team can turn it around and make a playoff run.
We will see if these new coaches can change the outcome of this program for this season and for a number of years down the road.
