SPORTS

Turnover the focus for Portland football early

Ryan Czachorski
Sentinel-Standard contributor
The Portland football team looks to win the turnover battle.

In a normal summer, it was going to be a lot of work for the Portland Red Raiders to get up to speed for week one.

Portland graduated 16 starters, seven on offense and nine on defense. So there are new players across the team that need to get the reps of a full summer program.

But then the COVID-19 pandemic came, wiping out full summer sessions, scrimmages and 7-on-7 events. It’s been an adjustment for the normal early August practice sessions Portland coach John Novara is used to.

“Besides the turnover, not being able to do anything with them in the summer has been the bigger factor. It definitely showed up in practice,” Novara said.

Portland is coming off an 8-3 season with a CAAC White championship and a second-round playoff appearance, continuing a fantastic stretch of football over the past five seasons.

And with a whole host of new faces on both sides of the ball, one of the returners is offensive guard and linebacker Nathan Zimmerman. He understands that on offense, both he and fellow guard Reese Townsend will be looked to as a stabilizing force as returning starters.

“There’s a little bit of pressure, but having that experience makes me confident. The other guard on the other side is a returning starter,” Zimmermand said. “The line is a big part of the offense, so yeah, people look up to us and lean on us.”

Ethan Patrick returns at wide receiver, and the running back corps will be highlighted by Jayce Gillette and Cameron Roof, among others.

The quarterback position could play a bigger role in the rushing attack than years before, with Trent Meyers and Haden Getchell battling it out for snaps and a new wrinkle for Novara to employ.

“We can adapt our offense pretty easily to what we have. We haven’t had a running quarterback in a couple years,” Novara said. “We can adapt our offense pretty easily to what we have. We haven’t had a running quarterback in a couple years.”

Gillette and Zimmerman will play at linebacker, and Reis Phillips returns at defensive end. Patrick is the only other returning defensive player, serving as an anchor in the secondary defensively.

While the sheer number of returning starters is low, Novara is counting on players who saw rotational snaps last season to take the jump to full-time starters.

“We have very athletic kids, they’re just young and inexperienced,” Novara said. “We play a lot of kids, and they have a lot of game experience.”

Portland is slated to open the season Aug. 28 against Ovid-Elsie with a whole new look on both sides of the ball.

But early on, the Red Raiders will be looking to get reps in and get them in safely as every team in the state adapts to the pandemic.

“We’re going to keep trying to improve,” Novara said. “There’s so many other regulations and stipulations we have to follow. We’re spending time on (them), you’ve got to kind of coach that. When we get those norms set up, we’ll start pushing a lot harder.”

Practice early has been different, Zimmerman admitted, but he thinks nothing has changed with what the Red Raiders will be aiming for.

“It’s been a little different. Being back in general and having a little bit of normalness in life, I love it,” he said. “I think we have the chance to go all the way. That’s the expectation every year. We’ve battled through the adversity and made it work. We’ve got a long ways to go but I think we have the work ethic for it.”