Greg Harlan has a feeling the fortunes of the St. James High School football team are going to change this year.
If last weekend’s full-contact camp was any indication, Harlan’s sixth-sense could be right on.
The Tigers were one of more than 20 schools who competed in the 11-on-11 East Central Full-Contact Football Camp, organized by St. Francis Borgia High School and held in both Washington and St. Louis. St. James played all of its games in Washington.
On Friday the teams played a jamboree-style scrimmage, with 16 offensive and 16 defensive plays. On Saturday the teams played full scrimmages that lasted two, 15-minute halves each.
St. James played three games each night and finished with a 4-1-1 overall record.
The Tigers faced Clopton, Lutheran St. Charles and Orchard Farm on Friday and Lutheran North, Winfield and Christian on Saturday.
Plagued by injuries and inexperience the previous two seasons, the Tigers are coming off a 1-9 2009 campaign.
With much more experience on the roster this season, Harlan is expecting much improvement.
So far in the off-season he has not been disappointed.
“I thought we played pretty well over the weekend,” said Harlan, a former all-state player for St. James entering his fifth season as Tiger head coach.
“We just came out and did what we’re going to do (as far as offensive and defensive schemes) this year. We ran the spread offense. Last year literally over half the kids we were starting were freshman, sophomores or kids who had never played football before. We’ve got more experience and it definitely showed over the weekend.
“This is the most optimism I’ve had since I’ve been head coach.”
Harlan said the Tiger offense clicked well much of the time.
“(Junior quarterback Jake Harlan) threw the ball well,” Greg Harlan said.
“We spread the ball around to a lot of different receivers. I think every receiver we took but one caught a ball. And our running backs looked a lot better. Tyler Craft broke off some long runs and Kevin Jernigan is a big, strong runner who did a good job in some short-yardage situations.
“And I was really happy with the line. They showed a lot of effort, specifically Ryan Pope and Trevor Loy. And Josh Karnes, coming in as a sophomore, got a lot of experience as a freshman last year and looks substantially improved.”
