A Look At The 2017 Schedule

I thought I might take a moment to look over Xavier's opponents for the season, maybe see what players those teams have coming back and how those teams have been trending. Then I thought, I shouldn't just do that for myself. Maybe I'll post it online.

How about that? Here we go.


IOWA CITY REGINA

Last year:      13-1, 1A state champions
Since 2012:    54-2 (six straight state championships)

Last meeting with Xavier: Last October, Xavier trailed 35-7 at the half and had no answer for Nick Phillips. Phillips got hurt, though, and barely played in the second half as the Saints stormed back to tie the game at 35-all in the 4th quarter. Regina drove to the Xavier 20 with about a minute left, when Blake Whitten intercepted Nathan Stenger's pass and returned it near midfield. Dallas Klein's 36-yard field goal as the clock ran out won the game for Xavier 38-35.

Returning contributors from 2015:

• Jared Brinkman  (72.5 tackles, 6 sacks)
• Michael Conlon  (114 yards, 1 TD rushing; 157 yards, 1 TD passing; 11 catches for 145 yards, 1 TD; 32 tackles, 5 INT)
• Thomas Rapp      (393 yards, 3 TDs passing; 23 catches for 259 yards, 2 TDs; 35.4 punt avg)
• Isaac Vollstedt    (210 yards, 2 TDs rushing)
• Mason Simpson  (154 yards, 2 TDs rushing)
• Jack Johnson      (20 catches for 263 yards, 2 TDs)
• Trae Rogers        (47.5 tackles)

Regina always plays a lot of players at several different positions, which they can do when they get so far ahead of so many of their opponents all the time. While they've lost quite a few great players (Nick Phillips, Nathan Stenger, Justin Hunter) they've got great players still out there. You know a six-time state champion football team is going to be really, really good.

LINN-MAR

Last year:      4-6, lost in 1st round 4A playoffs
Since 2012:   18-21 (won their 4A district in 2014)

Last meeting with Xavier: Linn-Mar is a former MVC partner of Xavier, prior to the Saints moving to 3A when districts came to 4A in 2014. They met in the last game of the regular season in 2013, when Brendan Miller set a Xavier school record with 271 yards rushing in a 44-14 Saints win.

Returning contributors from 2015:

• Reese Phillips   (1587 yards, 13 TDs passing; 188 yards, 3 TDs rushing)
• Brennan McGaffe (463 yards, 3 TDs rushing; 18 catches for 173 yards)
• Josh Gassman    (25 catches for 321 yards, 3 TDs)
• Kirby Kerr         (15 catches for 348 yards, 1 TD; 31.9 punt avg)
• Joshua Strauss   (50 tackles, 4 INT)
• Neme Siaway    (208 yards, 5 TDs rushing; 31 tackles)
• Alex Striecher    (43 tackles, 2 sacks)
• Jace Meyers       (38 tackles, 2 sacks)
• Austin Cochrane (7-9 extra points, 3-3 field goals)

Linn-Mar returns a lot of experience from last season. I would expect they should post a better record than last year's 4-6.

BENTON

Last year:      5-5, lost in 1st round
Since 2012:   10-27

Last meeting with Xavier: Despite their stadiums being about 20 miles apart, these two teams have never met.

Returning contributors from 2015:

• Riley Pfiffner  (848 yards, 7 TDs rushing; 783 yards, 9 TDs passing; 52.5 tackles, 3 INT)
• Spencer Touro  (58 tackles)
• Sam Maresh    (234 yards, 2 TDs rushing; 34.5 tackles, 3 sacks)
• Vance Bartlet  (20-22 extra points, 2-3 field goals)

Benton has had a tough go of things over the past several years, but was able to squeak into the playoffs with a fourth-place district finish in 2015. The Bobcats find themselves in a much tougher district this year, however, and with not a lot of returning experience, this could be another long year.

CHARLES CITY

Last year:      3-6
Since 2012:    8-26

Last meeting with Xavier: The Saints defeated Charles City 35-6 in a 1st round playoff game in 2014.

Returning contributors from 2015:

• Drew Mitchell    (1027 yards, 10 TDs passing)
• Jaden Foster      (25 catches for 461 yards, 3 TDs; 38 tackles, 5 INT; 30.6 punt avg)
• Tyreaque Baker (321 yards, 1 TD rushing; 2 INT)
• Alex Koehler     (161 yards rushing; 42 tackles, 1 sack)
• AJ Maloy           (29 tackles, 2 sacks)

An experienced quarterback-receiver combination is back for the Comets, but not a lot else.

DECORAH

Last year:      6-6, lost in quarterfinals
Since 2012:   36-11 (state 3A champions 2012)

Last meeting with Xavier: Decorah ended Xavier's undefeated season in the second round of the playoffs in 2015, beating the Saints 30-21 while outplaying Xavier in almost every facet of the game.

Returning contributors from 2015:

• Dawson Meyer      (13 catches for 148 yards, 1 TD; 1 INT)
• Shawn Sindelar     (11 catches for 186 yards, 1 TD; 56.5 tackles, 1 INT)
• Andy Lillegraven  (49 tackles)
• Adam Hovden       (44 tackles)
• Jacob Roher           (141 yards, 1 TD rushing)
• Brendan Numedahl (114 yards, 3 TDs rushing)
• Dominic Mueller   (28 tackles)
• Cade Klimesh        (31.4 punt avg)

In the post-mortems of Xavier's loss to Decorah last November, I heard some talk about how young Decorah was and they were about a year ahead of schedule as far as their football success. Looking at the stats, however, they really don't bring back much experience on offense. Plenty of good defenders coming back, though, and they might have some experienced linemen - that's always hard to tell from looking at stats.

INDEPENDENCE

Last year:      8-2, lost in 1st round

Since 2012:   21-17 

Last meeting with Xavier: Never met.

Returning contributors from 2015:

• Isaiah Miller      (45.5 tackles, 1 sack)
• Mason Wood     (108 yards rushing; 33 tackles, 4 INT)
• Cyrus Butters     (3 INT)

Indee sort of rose from the dead the past few years, making the playoffs for the first time in school history in 2014 and then making it two years in a row last season (with a second-place finish in their district behind West Delaware). Looking at the stats for returning players, though, it looks like they've graduated a huge number of contributors to those two playoff teams, and there's not a lot coming back. Attitude makes a big difference, though, and once players get a taste of success they can achieve it again.

WAVERLY-SHELL ROCK

Last year:      6-4, lost in 1st round (to Xavier)

Since 2012:   26-16 (in playoffs all four years)

Last meeting with Xavier: Xavier has played the Go-Hawks in the playoffs in both 2014 and 2015, with the Saints winning a second-round game 33-20 in 2014 and then holding on for a hard-fought 14-7 win in the first round last year.

Returning contributors from 2015:

• Joey McNally  (28 catches for 450 yards, 2 TDs; 24.5 tackles, 5 sacks)
• Jacob Norton   (22-25 extra points, 1-3 field goals)

Again, like Independence and Benton, there's not a lot of experience coming back for Waverly-Shell Rock (although, there could be solid returnees on the offensive line that don't show up in the stats). This program has established itself as a perennial playoff contender, though, so they should be in the mix for the top of the district.

VINTON-SHELLSBURG

Last year:       3-6

Since 2012:   10-26

Last meeting with Xavier: Never met.

Returning contributors from 2015:

• Will Edwards      (78 tackles; 78 yards rushing; 56 yards passing)
• Wes Edwards      (71 tackles, 1 sack, 1 INT; 6 catches for 52 yards)
• Drew Wiley        (60.5 tackles, 3 sacks)
• Tyler Bartz          (11 catches for 232 yards, 2 TDs; 35.3 punt avg)
• John Betterton     (23.5 tackles, 1 sack)
• Nathan Struve     (54 yards rushing, 1 TD)
• Tanner Davis       (39 yards rushing)

Some solid defenders for the Vikings - Wiley was second team all-state in 2015 - but the offensive ball-handling positions are going to be fairly untested. Vinton-Shellsburg has never made the playoffs in their history. Former Cedar Rapids Jefferson head coach Jim Womochil is the head coach for the Vikings.

SOUTH TAMA

Last year:      11-1, lost in 2A semifinals

Since 2012:   31-13  (8 or more wins in 3 of last 4 seasons)

Last meeting with Xavier: Never met.

Returning contributors from 2015:

• Clayton Rosenberger     (794 yards, 3 TDs passing)
• Isaac Judge                    (44 tackles, 2 INT)
• Kolbie Clark                  (192 yards, 3 TDs rushing; 4 catches for 111 yards)
• Lane Koch                     (141 yards, 2 TDs passing)
• Nathan Weiss                 (44-51 extra points, 3-3 field goals)

South Tama had some success in Class 3A a few years back, then dropped to 2A where they also were very strong. 2016 finds them back in 3A. Again, not a huge number of experienced players coming back, but this is a solid program with a very good head coach (Jay Hoskey was the Class 2A Coach of the Year last year). The Trojans will be another contender for the district crown.

Remember, for the 2016-17 cycle the state has expanded the districts to 8 teams instead of 7, and cut the playoff qualifiers in half (to 16 rather than 32). This means only the top two finishers in each district are guaranteed to make the playoffs. By comparison, in the last two seasons just three teams per district did not qualify for the playoffs. This year six teams in each district aren't getting in (well, there's kind of a caveat there with the two "wild card" teams to fill out the 16 team bracket, but for all intents and purposes ...). The top contenders in District 3 this year, in my opinion, appear to be Xavier, Decorah, and South Tama, with Independence and Waverly-Shell Rock also in the mix. I doubt that Benton, Charles City or Vinton-Shellsburg will be in the running for a playoff spot this season.

But that's just one guy's thinking. In about a month the players will get out on the field and start making things count. 

Keeping the Old Gang Together

I thought I'd get this out publically and officially, in case anyone happened to be wondering. Mike Winker will continue to be part of the KMRY broadcast team for Xavier football this fall.

Winker stepped down as Activities Director at Xavier in June. He had been the school's first and only AD since classes began in 1998, having served earlier as AD at Regis High School (which joined with La Salle High School to become Xavier). For those 18 seasons, Winker had filled the commentary role for KMRY's broadcasts of Xavier football, missing just three games in all Xavier's history.

With Mike moving on to other roles, it was an open question whether he might elect to stay on with KMRY to do the football broadcasts. After all, there's travel to exotic spots like Decorah, Waverly, Independence and Tama coming up this year. But he did decide to stay on, with Scot Hughes (that's me) handling the play-by-play for his seventh season.

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I also wanted to mention some of last season's football honors, at least so far as some of the returning players for Xavier in 2016. Of course the offense will return the entire backfield (QB Bryce Schulte, FB Erik Rodriguez and TB Maliki Wilson) along with a couple of linemen. The defense returns two or three players who may not have been starters all season, but contributed a lot and were practically starting players by season's end. So there's a decent amount of experience coming back from what turned out to be a 9-1 Saints squad in 2015.

The players returning who were honored as Class 3A All-District 4 first team players include Schulte, who was District Player of the Year; Wilson; and offensive lineman Sam Meyers. Second team honorees who will be back this year include linemen Max Johnson and Ryan Jasper (Jasper also punted for the Saints last year).

NUM3ER5

Yeah, not so good at the leet-speak. What can I say, I'm an old guy ...

When it comes to sports, there are numbers everywhere. You can practically see them floating in the air above each player's head. Every action that takes place on the field or the track or the court causes numbers to change - batting averages, completion percentages, scoring, race times, minutes played, the list goes on. While these numbers are practically infinite (and no one tracks them all, but plenty of people track lots of different ones), when the totals start to mount up to something greater than anyone from that team, or school, or conference, or state has ever accomplished before, that gets some attention.

As an aside, I can speak to this angle personally. Sort of. I wasn't a tremendous athlete in high school, I'll admit, although I was a two-year starter in football and earned two letters in track and one in baseball. I got to play quite a bit, is what I'm saying. although it was a smaller school (class 2A in football at the time, anyway. They've now dropped to A). My junior year we had a track meet at Keota, which at that time still had a 440-yard cinder track, after almost every other school had gone to 400-meter tracks. Our coach, Bob Gerard, made sure to tell us that since this could be the final time our school ever competed on a 440-yard track, we had the chance to set some school records that would never be surpassed. That stuck with me. If I recall correctly, the 4x440 relay team I was a part of that day did indeed set the school record, so somewhere in a dusty book where all the numbers are recorded, my name is included in that list and it will never be erased. So that's pretty cool. (It might have been the distance medley relay team, but I don't think I ran in that until I was a senior. And it might have even been the 4x880 relay. Look, it was a long time ago and there's been a lot to stick in my brain since then, like the lyrics to Kesha's "Tik Tok" or the "Nationwide is on your side" jingle. Priorities, man!).

This is a long introduction, but what I'm getting to is that, barring injury, several Xavier school records are likely going to fall this football season. So let's take an advance look at the probabilities (so we don't miss the moment when and if it comes).

RUSHING

We'll start with some rushing records. Xavier has had a lot of great feature backs in their history, but Will Martin and Brendan Miller stand out. Martin was a key part of the 2005-06 Saints squad and helped lead the team to the 2006 state title. His scoring records still stand. Miller (2012-13) broke Martin's yardage records, after stepping up to replace Cal Stovie when he was injured in the third game of the 2012 season (unfortunately for Cal, who was on a ridiculous early pace of over 10 yards a carry and 163 yards per game).

Maliki Wilson has an excellent shot to surpass Miller's school record for rushing yards. Miller carried 441 times for 2498 yards in his two seasons (both school marks), for an average 5.7 yards per carry. Wilson - who electrified a lot of Xavier fans when he burst on the scene with the sophomore squad in 2014 - had 183 carries for 1273 yards last year, in only 10 games. Some simple math breaks that down to 7 yards per carry and 127.3 yards per game, both really high numbers.

Wilson doesn't even need to rush for more yards this year than last to take over the school record, as he's just 1225 yards away. Remember, too, it took Miller 28 games to set his mark (25 as a starter) and Wilson has only had 10. It's still going to take a great season - 136 yards per game to catch Miller in the 9 games before the playoffs start - but Maliki has an excellent shot.

His chances at the records for carries and touchdowns are most likely out of reach, though. Wilson would need 258 rushes to match Miller (and the school record for a season is 263). He'd also need 27 rushing touchdowns to catch Martin's 39, and again the current season record is 29. So, it's possible, but it would take a nearly historic performance.

PASSING

Again barring injury, a change in these records is pretty much a sure thing. A caveat, though - Bryce Schulte played in five games as a freshman in 2013, and 2016 will be his third year as the starting quarterback for Xavier. No other Saints quarterback has started for three seasons, including Bryce's brother Reggie, who currently holds almost all the Xavier passing records.

Here are the current school records, held by Reggie (2010-12, although I think he played in only one game as a sophomore in 2010, and that briefly. I think he threw two passes and one was intercepted):

• Pass attempts:              389
• Pass completions:        265
• Passing yards:            4002
• Passing touchdowns:     39

And here is where Bryce stands at the start of the 2016 season:

• Pass attempts:              326               (63 to tie)
• Pass completions:        176               (89 to tie)
• Passing yards:            2749               (1253 to tie)
• Passing touchdowns:     26               (13 to tie)

In addition, Reggie holds the school record for total offense at 4092 yards (obviously all but 90 of those yards were passing); Bryce is currently at 3147 (including almost 400 yards rushing) and is 945 yards away from tying the school mark.

Again, Bryce has the advantage of an extra year as a starter, which doesn't diminish his skills in any way (he's a darn good quarterback, makes excellent decisions on the field, throws with good touch and protects the ball very well). In fact, he's played in 28 games total so far (23 as a starter), while Reggie had 28 games as a starter over his career, so comparing totals right now gives you a good comparison of the two. Bryce's averages over the past couple of seasons are 1505 yards in total offense, 160 pass attempts, 85 pass completions, 1333 passing yards and 17 touchdowns, so he could come in with a slightly below average season in 2016 and still surpass his brother's records.

Oh, yeah. There's a third Schulte brother on the way up. Quinn Schulte will be a sophomore this year.

I'll be keeping track of these numbers as they change over the heads of Schulte and Wilson over the course of the season, so if you tune in to KMRY radio on Friday nights, hopefully I can call the moments when and if these records fall.

A Different Way To See Districts

It's been a while since March, hasn't it? I guess this wild world of blogging is passing me by, mostly ... I mean, I read about all these people who are becoming famous and getting movie/media deals for no other reason than they make their own YouTube channel videos, and my mind boggles. My cousin and I used to make fake radio shows and our own version of the Watergate tapes on cassette back in the '70s. Who would've thought that type of activity could make you famous 40 years later?

Anyway, as summer bears on and I start preparations for another season of high school football, I had the notion to break down the Iowa high school districts in a couple of different ways. I don't know why, just had a thought, and a few hours to kill before work. So, let's start out by looking at Class 3A, which is the class I have the most interaction with.

Iowa re-classifies and re-districts every two years, so 2016-17 becomes a new cycle. Several school districts moved up and down in the classifications, as always happens - but this year the state also changed from 8 districts of 7 teams to 7 districts of 8 (in the classes other than 8-player and 4A; those two are special in their own ways). This increases district games from 6 to 7, which coaches wanted, but also presents some problems of geography in trying to group together 8 schools.

First, and by first I mean last winter when the districts were announced, I made a map grouping the districts by boundary lines. I drew lines on a map of Iowa to divide the state between the districts. This is a common way to view this type of construction; a political map showing congressional districts, for example, might look much like this. Here's the 3A map:

Now, while this is easy to read and understand, it's also a little misleading. Vast tracts of open land far from any of the included schools get included in each district area. It's just the way this map works. It does show, for example, how far-flung a district might be (District 7, for instance) or bizarre choices by the athletic association (the boundary between Districts 4 and 5 is just weird), but it doesn't show the district groupings very well.

Hence, my idea for a "web" style map. Here I would connect the schools in each district with lines. If all 8 schools fit in a type of shape, that's all well and good; but if a school remained inside that shape boundary, I would connect it with the others in a type of webby-looking thing. I think this map works a lot better as far as showing exactly how far apart members of a particular district are, as well as highlighting some real oddities in the district design. Behold:

Here you can see that District 7 really isn't all that much more stretched out than District 1, or 3, or 5, as far as travel. Districts 2 and 6 become much more compact than the boundary map shows. Plus, take another look at that mess between 4 and 5; why, oh why on God's green earth did the state put Clear Creek-Amana in 4 and Solon in 5 when they so obviously should have been switched?

Anyway, that was what I did the first part of this week. I know, such a nerd. Here's a look at the other classes (not 4A; that class doesn't work the same way because you have multiple schools in Sioux City, Des Moines and Cedar Rapids that are in different districts. Drawing those boundaries would be a tremendous pain).

8-player boundary map:

8-player web map:

You can see how western Iowa is a hotbed for 8-player schools, to the point where Districts 6 and 7 practically share some teams.


Class A boundary map:

Class A web map:

Class 1A boundary map:

Class 1A web map:

Some really odd things going on here in central Iowa between Districts 5 and 6, and out in eastern Iowa along Interstate 80 between Districts 3 and 4. Not sure if the state could have done a whole lot better, though; it's just an odd distribution of schools.

Class 2A boundary map:

Class 2A web map:

Here you can really see how Central Lee, down in the southeast corner of the state, is practically on an island by itself. Those road trips to Osceola and Monroe are going to be long hauls. Then again, in District 7 you have places like East Sac County and South Central Calhoun having to get all the way to Shenandoah and Clarinda.

Interesting side note about Central Lee: back when I was in high school in the early 1980s, Central Lee was actually a member of the Blackhawk Conference, along with my high school (Cardinal, Eldon) and places like Harmony, Van Buren, WACO, Pekin, West Burlington and Tri-County. Some conference members started complaining about the cost of travel, so after the 1980-81 school year the conference disbanded. While many of those schools found other conference homes, Cardinal had to go independent for my senior year, so we had road trips to places like Brookfield, Missouri (which is a long freakin' way). So allow me some schadenfreude to see Central Lee (who complained about making conference road trips to Thornburg and therefore helped kill the conference) face road trips to Osceola, Chariton and Monroe. Suck it, Central Lee!