Russellville recently completed a successful second season under head coach Mark Heaton, going unbeaten in Region 8 play, advancing to the state quarterfinals and winning 11 games—all for the first time since 2010. On Monday morning, in a Q&A session with the Franklin Free Press, Heaton shared his thoughts on this year’s accomplishments and the future of the program heading into 2016.
FFP: What defined the 2015 season for you and your team?
MH: “I think what really defines this season for our program as a whole is just getting us back to where we’re competing for state championships every year. That’s where we wanna be. That’s our ultimate goal. I couldn’t be more proud of the way our kids did it. They did it the right way. We’ve had a lot of obstacles to overcome and a lot of battles to fight the last two years, but we’ve grown together and found a way to build that chemistry, and to make sure we’re doing it the right way as far our work ethic and things of that nature.
“This year really defines who we are as a program and where we wanna go. We’ve got a lot of exciting times ahead of us. We just wanna continue to get better and do things the right way.”
FFP: In what ways did your team grow from Week 1 to Week 13?
MH: “Starting out at the beginning of the season, regardless of where you are, you’re looking to grow and develop into the team you wanna be. We got better every week, and that gave us a chance to play deep into the playoffs. Defensively, we grew so much and got so much better. Offensively, our run game really came on strong at the end of the year. I think both of those things are attributable to the fronts on both sides of the ball.
“Offensively, up front, we had a lot of new faces up there. We had three new starters on the offensive front [Gabby-Pedro Juan at center and fellow juniors Slate Wallace and Raul Mojica on the right side of the line] and two guys who were returning [junior tackle Austin Stidham and senior guard Hunter James on the left side]. They really gelled as the season went along. We’re excited, because we’ve got four of those five coming back.
“On the defensive side, Tyrone [Wilson], Jared [Thornton] and [Austin] Bohannon came into their own and kind of took it upon themselves to shoulder the weight defensively of everything we were trying to do. That allowed some of our younger guys to grow up. We saw some guys step in to fill some shoes and take over some roles that we really needed. That’s the thing that makes you a good football program. Every year, you have seniors graduate, and every year you need guys to step in and fill those shoes and become great players. We’ve had a lot of guys do that this past year, guys who hadn’t been on the field much as varsity players who became solid contributors and good playmakers for us by Week 13. Individually, we had a lot of guys get better, and that helped us get better as a team.”
FFP: What legacy does the 2015 team and, in particular, this year’s senior class leave behind?
MH: “Their legacy in my eyes is just the kind of competitors they are and how hard they fought to get to where they are. It’s not easy to win eleven games and be playing in the third round of the playoffs. That’s a hard thing to do. I was talking with several of our coaches about that—we weren’t sure how far we could go. We had 19 kids that are not on the roster that were on the roster last year, or were a part of our program at some point.
“Just the resiliency of our kids, the mental toughness and the work ethic of trying to do it the right way and getting us back to the point of competing for state championships, that’s the legacy for those guys. That was built on the foundation of our seniors over the last two years. I give credit to them for that. They’ve done a great job of that. They set the bar really high for the guys who are coming up behind them.”
FFP: Given the key personnel that must be replaced [Wilson, Thornton and Bohannon up front, Cameron DeArman at outside linebacker, J.J. Johnson at strong safety and Austin Bennett at corner], can your defense pick up where it left off and be great again in 2016?
MH: “Yeah, it can. I think we’re capable of doing that in all three phases. We have some guys returning who are playing at a high level, and that will allow some of our newcomers to get their feet wet and grow. Roman Cortez rotated in there and played a ton on the defensive line. He’s gonna be a great player for us. Jeff Lloyd is another guy who rotated in a lot on the D-line. We’re looking for big things out of him. We’ve got guys who got some playing time and some experience who are ready to step in and fill those voids.
“Connor Stults came in and took that job [at outside linebacker] where Tyler Stone had played the year before. Colin Garrison moved to safety and had a great year, and Marvin Betancourt filled his role at corner. Austin Bennett came on strong and was an outstanding corner for us this year. You never know. There are always gonna be surprises, guys who step in and fill those roles for you. It just takes a handful of games to figure that out. Our veteran guys will give us a chance to fill that void and grow.
“Offensively we’re in the same boat. We lose our left guard, Hunter James, and losing a guy like Deyon [Hill] is a tough thing to replace. But that’s where we’ll need other guys to step up and do some good things for us. We’ve got our second-leading receiver [Garrison] coming back. We’ve got our quarterback, Payton Nichols, a guy with over 4,000 yards of total offense and 50 touchdowns the past two years, coming back. We’ve got a lot of good young skill players like Zay Boyd and Devin Buckhalter coming back who will need to step up and play.
“It’ll be a different dynamic. We’ll have to find our identity again, but that happens every year. That’s the thing about high school football that makes it so enjoyable and so fulfilling—being able to watch those kids grow so much in a short period of time.”
FFP: Are you expecting linebackers Landon Ezzell and Sid Willis [who combined for 182 tackles as first-year starters in 2015] to take a big leap forward in 2016?
MH: “Yeah, absolutely, those guys came on and produced for us. Landon wound up being our second-leading tackler. If you remember the year before, our leading tacklers were Blake Bendall and Jacob Hamilton, our inside ‘backers, and Ezzell stepped in and filled that void. He really came on strong at the end of the year. So did Sid, on both sides of the ball. We’re excited about those two guys.
“The question is, how much can you grow from now until next August? There’s a lot of opportunity there for those kids who wanna grow. But they have to make up their mind that they wanna do that. That’s what we saw from Deyon and J.J. and Cam and guys like that this past year—they wanted to be better and to have a great senior year. They put it all on the line. That’s the legacy they leave behind. They set the bar really high for the kids behind them. Now guys like Ezzell and Sid and all of them, they’ve really gotta work hard and get better, or they won’t be living up to the legacy set by the guys who came before them. They have some big shoes to fill.”
FFP: Deyon Hill carried the ball 259 times this year on his way to a record-setting season; the most carries by any back returning in 2016 was nine by Zay Boyd. Will your young running backs be ready to handle an increased workload with Hill gone?
MH: “The one thing we have to do is put them in position to be successful. We’re not gonna ask them to do something they can’t do. We don’t need one guy to step in and tote the ball 30 times a game the way Deyon was in the second half of the season. We don’t need a guy to do that. We may need one of them to carry the ball twelve times, and another one ten. We may need to depend more on our pass game with a veteran quarterback and a veteran offensive line coming back.
“The main thing is to find one or two guys who can run in between the tackles when we need them to. The biggest obstacle with that is getting these young guys in the weight room. We’ve gotta bulk ‘em up. Their physical stature now is like Deyon when he was a junior. We need them to do what he did and put on ten to fifteen pounds of muscle in the off-season. It’s not easy, but it’s certainly an attainable goal.”
FFP: What do you expect from Payton Nichols in 2016 as a senior quarterback and three-year starter?
MH: “Go back to Payton’s sophomore year [2014], and we struggled up front some that year. We didn’t have a clearly defined running game, and I think we had to lean on him a lot as a sophomore to make plays for us and get the ball distributed and all that stuff. Offensively, losing a guy like Deyon, we’re gonna miss him. But, man, I’m thankful we’ve got Payton back. It’s great to have a guy who can still run our offense and get things done and give us a chance to win some football games.
“If you look at where he is as a quarterback, over the last two years we’re 19-5. That’s pretty good. That doesn’t happen without having a great quarterback and a great leader in that position. We’re gonna lean on him a lot to be one of our playmakers and to be consistent for us. He eliminated a lot of mistakes this past year, and I think you saw that in his touchdown-to-interception ratio [18 to 5 in 2015]. The majority of those interceptions he threw were tipped balls or other things that weren’t costly errors on his part.
“I’m excited to have him back. I’ve never had a quarterback return for a third year in our system. It’s gonna be new for me, too.”
FFP: Colin Garrison really seemed to emerge as clutch, go-to receiver for you down the stretch. How do you anticipate his role growing in 2016?
MH: “He did. That’s something we really noticed. Going into the season, he was a No. 2 or No. 3 guy, and then he just started making plays. As we gave him more reps, he just kept making bigger plays and we started rotating him in even more, especially when we got deeper into the season and he was in better shape and more accustomed to playing on both sides of the ball.
“He’s gonna be a guy we expect to see some big plays from. He has the potential to be a real vertical threat. We’ll do a lot of different things with him. We’ve already started talking about that—moving him around all over the formation and finding different ways to get him the football. He’s dangerous with the ball in his hands, and we’ll look for ways to get it to him. We’ll probably use him some as a receiver out of the backfield, too. Then it’s just a matter of filling the void at those other slots around him with young guys like Devin and Logan Jones who have a ton of potential.”
FFP: Another round of reclassification and realignment is coming. What changes do you anticipate in Class 5A, Region 8?
MH: “There are definitely gonna be some changes. J.O. [Johnson] is combining with Butler to form Jemison High School, so you’d expect them to move up. It’ll be interesting to see how that situation lands. I think Columbia was on the borderline [of 6A], too, and they gained a lot of students. We’ll most likely lose them out of the region. We had some on the lower end that were really close, too.
“I honestly think we’re gonna see another big change region-wise, with the possibility of some local schools being in our region and helping us with some travel and stuff like that. We hope that if there are changes, that’s what it would be. Every two years, you just sit back and wait. The last couple of times, it’s been big. I think the state’s done a great job. The new realignments have created a lot of new opportunities for schools all across the board. It’s been a good thing for high school football in the state of Alabama.”
