HARRISBURG — Calvin Everett’s voice boomed across the turf at Severance Field Monday just before noon.
“Get gritty!” the Harrisburg football coach yelled. “Come on! Get gritty!
“I need some dogs out here!”
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Harrisburg hit the field for a morning session as high school football teams across Pennsylvania kicked off the season with heat acclimatization practices.
It was an up-tempo affair for the Cougars, who have played for state titles in two of the past three seasons.
But, in the end, they just weren’t gritty enough.
Not for Everett.
Not with a schedule that begins with a month of road games, including openers at Coatesville and Akron’s Archbishop Hoban, two teams ranked in the top 100 of High School Football America’s national preseason poll.
So, there was some tough love at the end of the day.
“It’s our first practice … first time in pads,” Everett said. “I knew things would be sluggish, but today’s practice was very spotty. I saw some good things, and I saw some bad things.
“I just told them we have to keep fighting through it, and let’s be better next practice.”
It can be difficult to glean much from a single practice — especially the first of the season.
But Harrisburg showed off a big, and young, offensive line led by 6-foot-4, 325-pound junior Nate Bruce, who recently added college offers from Texas A&M and Penn State.
Senior tailback Jahmir Plant, coming off two solid seasons, looked quick and explosive.
And the team spent most of the morning rotating Nicari Williams, who transferred in after posting a solid season as Steel-High’s starter in 2018, and John McNeil at quarterback.
The two are vying to fill the spot vacated by Kane Everson, who headed to William and Mary after earning PennLive’s Offensive Player of the Year honor last season.
“We are just letting them go at it,” Everett said of the quarterback situation. “Right now, they’re battling and going toe-to-toe. We are going to use the rest of camp to evaluate those guys, but, right now, no one guy is on top of the other.”
The Cougars will have a lot to replace on defense, too, after losing linebacker Andre White Jr., PennLive’s Defensive Player of the Year, to Texas A&M as well as a host of other top playmakers.
“What excites me about this team is we have some nice-sized guys that are hungry and who have been working hard,” Everett said. “The thing that worries me is the amount of experience we lost from last season.
“We have a lot of guys that just don’t have a lot of varsity experience.”
Senior defensive end/tight end Saquon Carter-Barton didn’t seem too worried about that though.
He was one of the inexperienced guys who stepped up for Harrisburg last season.
“We call it the ‘Cougar Way,’” he said. “The ‘Cougar Way’ is always next man up. We are looking for those young guys, those sophomore and juniors or maybe even seniors that haven’t played a lot yet, to get in there and handle their business.”
And he said he believes that will happen.
“It’s not an urgency thing,” Carter-Barton said. “We are slow playing it, and getting guys in the positions they need to be in. Everybody knows we lost a lot from last year, but we are getting some good guys back too, and we are just trying to fill in some positions and take it one step at a time.”
But it does need to come together quickly.
Coatesville is just 18 days away.
“(The schedule is) going to be tough,” Everett said. “Our kids are well aware of it. We’ve been training and preparing for this season, though. We are ready for this moment.”
“It’s super exciting,” Carter-Barton said. “You have to respect these guys. (Coatesville quarterback Ricky) Ortega, Dapree Bryant … you have to respect all of them.
“So, you just have to come with the mindset that these are games we have to play,” he continued. “We have spots to fill, and everyone has to fulfill their role in order for us to be successful.”
-- Follow Brian Linder on Twitter, @SportsByBLinder