The River Falls High School football team has never spent less time on the practice field ahead of its season opener, which is Thursday at Wisconsin Rapids, than this year.
And that’s a good thing. Because less can indeed be more if you’re working with abundance. That requires some explanation.
The Wildcats had 87 players in the high school program in Ryan Scherz’s first year as head coach in 2021. That number has ballooned to 125 this year. Fewer than 20 of those are seniors, an indication of the groundswell of participation that has been building in the younger ranks.
For that, Scherz credits the work done at the youth levels. River Falls plays small-team flag football only through the sixth grade, a switch in strategy devised by the high school coaches to promote participation. The middle school program is also growing in strength. That all funnels more and more kids to the higher grade levels.
Pictured at practice at River Falls High School on Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024, the River Falls football program has experienced a numbers boom in recent years, peaking at 125 players in the high school program this fall. (Jace Frederick / Pioneer Press)
Scherz then noted the strong culture built in the high school program, and added the success in recent years. Excluding the 2020 COVID year, the Wildcats have reached the playoffs in five straight seasons, its own form of promotion.
That’s a big reason why that success is seemingly building off itself. The boost in numbers is paying off in a major way specifically this season.
For the first time in Scherz’s tenure, River Falls will deploy a two-platoon system with very limited crossover between offensive and defensive personnel. Offensive players play offense, and vice versa. It’s a common approach at the largest schools, but River Falls is a Division 2 program in Wisconsin. A school that size sporting this quantity of players is a hard-earned luxury.
The Wildcats are already reaping the benefits. Senior defensive back Preston Johnson noted the sophomores on the team are progressing far more rapidly than they do in most camps. Defensively, senior lineman Lincoln McCarty said the coaching staff has been able to get more complex with schemes and responsibilities, because there’s simply more time and focus committed to that side of the ball.
In the past, a two-hour practice may have featured 50 minutes of offense and 50 minutes of defense. Now, the majority of that session is dedicated to learning and working on a player’s specific side of the ball.
That efficiency has also allowed for less time on the practice field, as things are getting picked up in short order. So players are fresher and likely more enthusiastic.
Last season, the Wildcats struggled at times to get stops. Preston Johnson noted that was often due to lapses in discipline, the volume of which everyone expects to decrease this fall. Part of that is a product of experience gained. River Falls was a young team a year ago, featuring many inexperienced sophomore and junior contributors who now sport a firm grasp of the game.
“A lot of these kids have already played a lot of football. So the Day 1 installs for them are like old hat,” Scherz said. “Now you can get to some more advanced stuff and get better at the stuff you really want to do, and that’s what I think we’ve seen for the most part over the past two and a half, three weeks.”
But the overall substitution and practice approach is also a key contributor to the team’s expected advancement.
“They can seep into the itty patches of things and get it fixed up,” McCarty said. “We’re farther ahead right now than we were last year. Study-wise, when we go through the things and study over it, they know exactly what their keys are to do. … I feel like a lot fewer small mess-ups are going to happen on defense.”
The first-team defense is also getting invaluable reps against the first-team offense on a near daily basis, which cannot happen if there’s overwhelming crossover of players between the two units.
McCarty said the Wildcats’ offense is “full of killers.” Senior tight end Eli Johnson, an Iowa commit, noted that side of the ball is indeed “looking good.” Working against that offense has forced the defense to make strides to keep pace.
“I can see the defense a little bit, and I feel like the defense is coming together nicely, too,” Eli Johnson said. “I feel like we have all the pieces.”
Pictured at practice at River Falls High School on Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024, Wildcats senior tight end Eli Johnson is an Iowa commit. (Jace Frederick / Pioneer Press)
Indeed, River Falls appears to have that golden combination of depth and talent. Along with Eli Johnson, there are a number of other college-level players. Junior offensive lineman Samuel Simpson, who was all-conference as a sophomore, has offers from Kansas and Wisconsin.
“We have more speed than we’ve had in awhile,” Scherz said. “And we’re pretty big. Like (the offensive line) is big and physical and athletic.”
Preston Johnson said Scherz has told the group this is “the most talented team we’ve had since he can remember.” That has the Wildcats thinking big. The one thing missing from the program’s recently growing resume is a deep playoff run.
McCarty said many players have mentioned a “14-game season.” Game No. 14 would be the state championship.
“I think that’s obviously our goal if everybody stays locked in,” Preston Johnson said. “I think we can beat anybody in the state.”
They certainly have the numbers to do so, fulfilling the long-term vision Scherz and Co. have had for the program.
“We just want to get as many of our athletes on the field as possible, because we feel like we have a lot of good ones,” Scherz said. “Building a program with this many kids, it’s certainly a huge shift. It’s awesome. But it’s like, ‘Oh, we have way more kids.’ That means everything is a bit more. But yeah, to compete at the level we want to compete at, I think these are the kinds of numbers that we need.”
