Football: Heritage Looking For Replacements

ROGERS -- Next year's Rogers Heritage football team will look very different since the War Eagles graduated a senior class greatly responsible for back-to-back playoff appearances.

That makes spring football practice a very important time for the War Eagles, Heritage coach Perry Escalante said.

Rogers Heritage War Eagles

Date^Opponent^Time

Sept. 5^Olathe (Kan.) North^7:30 p.m.

Sept. 12^Russellville. ^7:30 p.m.

Sept. 19^at Navasota, Texas^7 p.m.

Sept. 26^at Springdale High*^7:30 p.m.

Oct. 3^Rogers High*^7:30 p.m.

Oct. 10^at Fort Smith Northside*^7:30 p.m.

Oct. 17^at Fort Smith Southside*^7:30 p.m.

Oct. 24^Fayetteville*^7:30 p.m.

Oct. 31^Bentonville*^7:30 p.m.

Nov. 7^at Springdale Har-Ber*7:30 p.m.

*7A-West Conference Game

Heritage returns just three full-time starters on defense and five on offense, but two huge keys for the War Eagles' hopes next season will be filling the voids left by quarterback Josh Qualls and running back Brandon Gates, who both earned all-state honors as seniors.

Escalante has decided to move speedster Joey Saucier, who will be a senior in the fall, from receiver to running back. But the battle for the starting quarterback spot is up for grabs as spring workouts begin Tuesday.

"It really is big for us, particularly in the skill areas," Escalante said. "We'll have Joey back there we know, but we'll be looking for some receivers, a tight end and we don't have a settled deal at quarterback yet. We've got a lot of things to replace on offense and a lot to replace on defense.

"We've been pretty spoiled here to have two quarterbacks in six year. We've had two good ones, both who went on to play college ball."

Saucier (5-11, 192) caught 44 passes for 793 yards and eight touchdowns and has been receiving some Division I interest already this spring. Escalante wants to get the ball to him as many times as possible with his 10.8-second speed in the 100 meters.

The quarterback candidates include two rising juniors and two rising sophomores. The junior are Jake Qualls (6-0, 185) and Joel Brackett (6-0, 182). Qualls served as the backup to his brother this season, while Brackett served as a backup linebacker. The sophomores are Joe Britton (6-0, 177) and Luke Heiligenthal (5-10, 177).

The War Eagles are also making some alterations to the offense, while mostly keeping the same scheme. Heritage will operate some out of the shotgun, but more out of the pistol, Escalante said. He also said the quarterback, whoever it ends up being will be asked to run the ball.

Offensive coordinator Darren Hotelling said the idea isn't to radically change the offense.

"We're not selling out and putting in a new playbook," Hotelling said. "The sets and how we block the plays is changing a little bit."

Hotelling said the coaching staff spent some time at a high school in Houston in the offseason and even visited Auburn with coach Gus Malzahn to pick up some different ideas.

"With Auburn we looked at how they run their inside zone with their sniffer back.

Another formation Heritage already has in their playbook is shotgun with three backs similar to what Oklahoma State runs at times, Hotelling said.

"We had a period every day in practice we called it diamond period, I just never called it in a game," Hotelling said. "We looked at some stuff that Auburn runs out of that set that fit into our plans, too."

Sports on 05/12/2014

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