The North Butler football team just missed the playoffs with a 5-4 record last season. The Bearcats return their leading passer Brody Wangsness, leading rusher Jax Thorne and leading tackler Tucker Pecha (pay-key). Head Coach Jordan Vanderloop on how preseason work is going.
“We have a lot of returners that have seen some playing time or started the past year or two fine tuning and making the adjustments from our offensive calls to formations and blitzes, everything else,” Vanderloop says. “We’ve kind of adjusted some pieces that we felt like didn’t work real well last year. If we change one little thing, it’ll work a little better. So we’re just kind of going through with a fine tooth comb right now and making sure that everything is how we want it. So when the season really kicks off, we can get into game week, we have our basics down and just can really focus on our opponent.”
Wangsness led the team with 832 passing yards and nine total touchdowns (five passing and four rushing) last season. Thorne rushed for 461 yards and three touchdowns. Pecha paced the defense with 50 total tackles. Vanderloop on how the team has bonded.
“We’ve had a lot of upperclassmen being supportive to the younger ones, giving them pointers and tips of what they do or if they have a mistake they help correct it. So it’s nice to see that they’re stepping up and being role models on the team as well. And also our guys, they do a lot of good things. They usually go out for team bonding. They’ll go to a meal. They’ll carpool together. And past couple of years they’ve been going and they go and hand out roses to people that are working at like Pizza Ranch and stuff like that. Always good to see that, and it’s something they came up with. So it’s nice to see that they’re taking ownership of it and being part of the program and they’re proud to do all that.”
North Butler will open the season at West Fork on Friday, August 29.
Jordan Vanderloop interview:
