The high school football season in Idaho begins on Aug. 23. So to get you ready, we’re counting down with at least one local team preview every day until kickoff.
Up next: Pocatello Thunder
2023 IN REVIEW:
7-3 (first place in 4A South East Idaho Conference)Lost 28-18 to Bishop Kelly in Class 4A state semifinals
COACH’S RESUME:
Head Coach: Dave Spillett, tenth seasonOverall record: 45-41Assistant coaches: Willie Walker, Mason Spillett, Jacob Rensch, Shane Griggs, Josh Rensch, Tyler Holm, Dexter Gunter, Nate Stradinger, Brice Anderson.
RETURNING STARTERS:
2 on offense1 on defense
Only four current Class 5A teams have more wins over the last four seasons than Pocatello.
They are Bishop Kelly and Skyline, which have won four straight championships and 17 overall between them, 2020 state runner-up Emmett and Minico, a perennial contender.
The 27 wins, three league titles and two third-place finishes at state has been an impressive run for a program that once didn’t produce a winning season for seven years in a row not that long ago.
“It’s exciting, even more exciting that it’s at a place that I’ve been extremely proud of my whole life as a player and then getting a chance to go back,” Pocatello head coach Dave Spillett said. “It had been over a decade since Poky had even sniffed a playoff and now we’re at a point where every year we’re a top-3-5 team in the state and in the thick of it.”
But the Thunder will have to uphold that new standard this season with the cupboard a bit bare. It’s an expression that Spillett took a little bit of an issue with.
“There’s just different plates in the cupboard,” Spillett said with a laugh.
They will have to replace 28 seniors, 22 all-league and five all-state players. This includes arguably two of the best athletes in school history.
Ryken Echohawk left as Pocatello’s all-time leading rusher with 3,676 yards and 35 touchdowns. He’s at the College of Idaho now. Julian Bowie is eighth on Idaho’s all-time scoring list for boys basketball with exactly 2,100 points. But he was also a two-time all-state wide receiver. Bowie, too, headed west to play basketball at Boise State.
Dawson Walsh (OL), Carson Christensen (DB) and Devin Rodriguez (LB), who stayed in town to continue his football career at Idaho State, are the other all-state players gone from a year ago.
“You’re going to learn names that you haven’t heard over the last few years because you’ve heard the same names for the last three years,” Spillett said. “So that’ll be different. But our kids are really excited to really show the work that they’ve been putting in behind the scenes over the last few years.”
However, there are a couple of familiar faces.
Senior Hunter May returns as a two-way player. He was second-team all-conference wide receiver playing in the slot and an honorable mention defensive back last season. May will resume his safety role, but will be moved all over the field this year on offense.
“He’s played just about every position you can on offense. He played quarterback for us for a year, did a fantastic job there. He’ll play some running back, he’ll play some slot. We’ll move him to the outside,” Spillett said. “He’s just kind of a nightmare of a matchup for opposing teams. So we’ll look to exploit that as much as we can.”
All five of Pocatello’s offensive linemen earned all-league honors a year ago. But only Kyle Orr remains. So the 6-foot, 240-pound senior will be counted on to guide an o-line primarily made of kids seeing their first-ever varsity snaps.
“It’s sometimes tough to go from a JV squad and then instantly thrown in and being counted on early as an offensive lineman. Nothing works if your offensive line struggles. So Kyle is going to have to be an extension of the coaching staff,” Spillett said. “He understands that and he’s done a great job of doing that in practice, as well. He’s gonna have to help guys through some things early on. I’m extremely glad it’s him because I’ve got nothing but trust in him.”
Which comes in handy when you’re also breaking in a new quarterback at the same.
Tavin Williams is the frontrunner. The junior possesses the prototypical size at 6-3, 220 pounds. He was going to split time with Dreyson Contreras last season until a broken collarbone derailed that plan.
“I’m really excited to see what he does,” Spillett said. “He can throw and run. It’s going to be tough for people to decide what they want to take away, his throwing game or running game.”
May will also be in the running, though.
Some other new names to keep an eye on are senior defensive backs Jett Mechling and Adren Martinez. Mechling will play two ways at wideout, while Spillett thinks Martinez could be one of the top corners in the state by year’s end.
Senior tight ends/linebackers Tyson Astle and Isaac Mcculloch are ones Spillett is excited about, too.
So with all of that being said, do the Thunder still expect to be among the best in the state yet again?
“You know when I first started, the question would have been, ‘How hard is it to have a program that hasn’t won in so many years?’ So it’s so nice to hear the question now of, ‘You’ve been good for so long, what’s the challenge there?,’” Spillett said. “To be where we’re at, to have those expectations, that’s great. You don’t ever want to be in a situation where there’s zero expectations because that means things aren’t going very well. So we love that there’s a little bit of a target on us because we’ve been so successful lately. We’re going to embrace that. We’re not going to apologize for embracing it. We are who we are. We’re excited about it. We expect to be good because we’ve worked hard to earn that. So those expectations aren’t going to change.”
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