Shortly after Desert Hills’ stunning quarterfinal loss last season, coach Carl Franke couldn’t help but think his players were simply burned out. He decided it was time to make a couple of philosophical changes to the program.
Instead of heading into the offseason with a plan to work harder for a better 2016 campaign, Franke took the opposite approach.
“We told them to go play other sports. Go do other things. Or just be a kid for a while and not worry so much about football,” said Franke. “Everyone’s trying to do more, especially with the spring rules changed. Everyone tries to do more in the spring and more here and more there, and we’ve kind of gone the opposite direction a bit.”
The players still lifted weights throughout the offseason, and the team attended a couple of camps during the summer, but everything was tailored back.
That allowed players to pursue other sports like wrestling — where Bundy Sewell finished second in state in his first year wrestling — or track & field — which won the state championship.
“We encouraged the football players to go out and help these other sports and win championships and participate,” said Franke.
The only tangible way to measure if the changes were a success is results on the football field, and it’s hard to argue with the results as Desert Hills prepares for this Friday’s 3AA championship game against region foe Pine View.
“I think every sport the kids play is a grind throughout the season. Football is the ultimate grind. Not only is it a mental grind week in and week out, but the physical grind is so much more so than it is in some other sports,” said Franke.
So the coaching staff cut out some of the grind. Less work in the summer, less hitting in practice and more stretching during practice. The benefits shouldn’t be surprising — Franke said this is the healthiest his team has ever been this late in the season.
Another reason for that health is the implementation of Franke’s other philosophical change — platooning.
He wanted to platoon his players from the start of the season, but just never felt the timing was right. Losing to Dixie in Week 7 changed his thinking.
“Got to the Dixie game and we could tell how tired we were because we had so many guys going both ways,” said Franke. “We wholesale changed it the (next week). We said heck with it, this is what we need to do.”
Nobody plays both offense and defense anymore, and the Thunder are 4-0 since making the change, with all four wins coming by double digits. The players are as energized in the fourth quarter as the first quarter, and that was evident in the first game platooning.
Desert Hills outscored Pine View 17-0 in the fourth quarter to pull away for the 36-19 win.
“You sacrifice some talent in areas, but at the same time you’ve got kids playing as hard as they can play for the time they’re on the field,” said Franke. “Sometimes you get more out of those kids than you would out of an all-star player going both ways.”
One of those all-star players is Nephi Sewell. The senior is one of the elite defensive backs in Utah, but because of platooning he doesn’t even play defense anymore. He’s focused exclusively on running back.
In the four games as just an offensive starter, Sewell has rushed for 675 yards and eight touchdowns. While at the same time, the defense is enjoying plenty of success without him.
Deseret News prep editor and Real Salt Lake beat writer. EMAIL: jedward@deseretnews.com