Red Demon football opens fall camp with high expectations

Dodge City, KS(westernkansasnews.com) The Dodge City High School football team held their first fall practice Monday afternoon despite thunderstorms in the area. The Red Demons were able to hold practice in their new indoor practice facility.

“Typically it’s a coaches worst nightmare to have lightning in the vicinity on the first day of practice, gives us a great opportunity to get a regular practice in,” said Head Coach Dave Foster.

The Red Demons return four All-WAC performers from last season, first teamers in DL Evan Darville and OL Marcos Fisher, along with second team performers QB Beau Foster and DB Carlos Gamboa.

“Expectations are extremely high, this is a great group of kids,” said Foster, “we’ve waited for this opportunity we knew we’d go through some growing pains last year, we’ve got guys that graduated that are going to be tough shoes to fill, but we’ve got great kids back that are a year stronger and faster and I think we’ll see that here in a few weeks.”

The one big loss on the offensive side of the ball is Dawson Williams, who did it all for Dodge City last season with 804 total yards of offense and 12 TD’s.

“We don’t try to fill it with a single person, it’s a bunch of guys back that have game experience, Dawson was an explosive player and hopefully we’ve got some guys that fill those shoes, really won’t know until the lights come on,” said Foster.

Last years starting quarterback Beau Foster is back after throwing for 991 yards and nine TD’s, but last years backup Bowen Smith, a senior, is also back.

“Whether or not he’s(Foster) the guy we’ll find out in the next few weeks, but with Bowen Smith being back as a senior we simply expect those kids to be better,” said Foster, “Beau is physically a lot stronger, he didn’t finish the year last year and it’s going to take a stronger faster player and that experience he had last year is going to prove valuable.”

The defensive line is also another position of strength with Darville and Fisher back in the middle. Last season Darville recorded 65 tackles, seven for loss and Fisher had 58 tackles.

“Our defense is built around those kids, those are the two most dominant defensive lineman I’ve had on the same squad in 22 years of coaching,” said Foster

“Year later” is a theme for the Red Demons this season, meaning they have more expectations from last seasons young players. De’Jon Delgado, John Johnson and Kaden Kerr were players Foster named specifically that he expects to be improved and noted that he thinks the quality of depth is the best he’s had in a while.

Dodge City will open the season on Friday August 31 when they host Campus.