Spring Football Provides a Sneak Peek for 2013

On Saturday morning the Daniel Hand Football Team conducted a controlled scrimmage with officials as a culmination of their Spring Football program.  Since 2008 the CIAC has allowed schools to choose either to continue the traditional Spring program or they can forego the Spring training and start four days sooner in August.  Hand is one of 64 schools (out of 146) who chose to continue Spring Football.   I guess the old adage, “If it ain’t broke; don’t fix it,”  would apply here.  

A lot of familiar faces were not present.  The graduated seniors were probably sleeping in after the previous night’s graduation ceremony and Nite-In-Hand.   So it was time to see who can we expect to fill the huge gaps left when Matt Walsh, Peter Gerson, Brendan Bilcheck and company head off to college?   If Hand considers itself to be “program,” (it does) this is a year that will test that theory. Are they looking to re-build or re-load?

The Captains for the 2013 squad are: Hayden Atwater, Ian Dieli and Pat Rogers.  Atwater will follow a long tradition of Hand quarterbacks who wait until senior year for their chance to start.  Dieli and Rogers are returning defensive starters.

There was not really a score kept for the scrimmage, but overall it appeared that the defense was a bit further along in their progress than the offense.  Coach Filippone stated that he was pleased with the defense that they play hard and fast, with tough corners and safeties. Ian Dieli is a great anchor for the defensive line and the defensive ends, Corey Walsh and Mike Cinicolo are big and athletic.  Pat Rogers and his brother Dan are both returning starters who will control the outside.   

Hayden Atwater, who saw a lot of time at QB last year in mop-up duty, looked great in the scrimmage.  He was the only quarterback for the day as his backup, sophomore Nick VanDell, was away for a family wedding.  Coach Filippone stated that the offensive skill positions look to be very good.  Running back Conor Dowd is big, physical and fast and tough to bring down in the open field.  The receiving core of Tyler Mirando, Tim D’Annolfo, Tommy Wilson and Clay Sweitzer are solid.  

The biggest area of concern for the offense is the line.  Reid Staples (Jr) is the only returner with any experience.  Size wise they are probably bigger than last year’s squad, but with several sophomores looking to start it’s a big adjustment up from Freshmen Football to Varsity.  Coach Filippone stated that he has total confidence that assistant coaches Mike Ciotti and Don Giles will get the linemen ready for the start of the season.  

Tyler Phan will be back for another year of top-notch placekicking.  Coach Filippone stated that the kicking game will be an asset.  “I think this year it’s going to be a matter of if we can play great defense, kick the ball really good, play field position and not make too many mistakes.  I think if we can do those things even if we play a little more conservatively on offense, we can still be competitive with our schedule.”       

Hand’s opening game will be Thursday night, September 12th at 6pm on the NEW Strong Field against New Canaan.  Due to the way the calendar falls, there will be 11 Varsity games this year.  See the full schedule here: http://stats.ciacsports.com/cgi-bin/schedule-1314.cgi?school=DanielHand&fonts=&heads=&sport=boys-foo... 

Before the pads get put away for the Summer, most of the team will be headed to New Haven for Yale Football Camp this Wednesday through Saturday.  Other local teams participating will be: West Haven, Fairfield Prep and Ansonia.  So for those of you longing for the dream match-up that we’ll never see in the regular season, you can see the Tigers scrimmage against the Ansonia Chargers starting at 9am on Saturday June 29th in Yale Bowl.  

In other CIAC Football news...

There were 28 head football coaching vacancies around the state this off-season, but no hiring made bigger news than last week’s bombshell announcement that Jack Cochran would take over at Harding HS in Bridgeport.  Cochran is the controversial former head coach at Bloomfield, New Britain and New London.  He is also the father of UConn backup QB Casey Cochran.  The City of Bridgeport is looking for the eight time state championship winning coach to turn around a program that has gone 9-91 in the last ten years and hasn’t had a winning season since 1996.  

Give him a couple of years and this should make the FCIAC and Class L very interesting.