Replacing, rebuilding, reloading - How Ashland-Greenwood, Wahoo, Bishop Neumann are going about replacing major players

For three teams coming off deep postseason runs and large vacancies left by graduating impactful seniors classes — Wahoo, Bishop Neumann and Ashland-Greenwood — the answer has been variations of the same theme: lean on culture and what experience is coming back.

Bishop Neumann

"Frankly, what got us there?" was the question Bishop Neumann head coach Joseph Pavlik asked himself and the Cavaliers coaching staff in the winter months following last year's state title.

A pair of thousand-yard rushers plus possibly the fastest starting quarterback in state running the veer certainly played a part in the Cavaliers undefeated run, but Pavlik wanted to look beyond that.

"It was our selfless culture and our buy-in to each other and our love for each other and that's how we move forward," the second-year head coach said.

Considering how much production and experience, especially offensively, the Cavaliers would be losing, Pavlik wanted to jump start the next group on filling that void.

So, the program brought in everyone from its sophomores on up in this past spring to drill not play calls, but how to spearhead a program that would be devoid of its nucleus once the graduation bells rang.

"Oftentimes coaches say people need to be leaders, but they don't actually teach how to do that, so we did a lot there," Pavlik said.

The group worked through what they wanted the program to look like and ran through scenarios on how to be a good teammate.

"It's easier for them to uphold themselves and uphold their teammates to those standards," Pavlik said. "Very teaching based, understanding situations based on the right way to go about having a not comfortable conversation with our teammates, about your teammates effort or execution, so and so forth."

The spring work bore fruit during summer workouts and the preseason.

"We have a lot of kids challenging each other when they make a mistake, when they don't give good effort, it's turned into a lot of kids holding each other accountable and as a coach, shoot, they're doing a lot of the job for me and it comes better from a peer than it does a coach," Pavlik said.

The Cavaliers open the season at 7 p.m. Friday on the road at West Point-Beemer.

Wahoo

Wahoo enters the year with the No. 1 ranking in C-1 across all three major publication rankings, a final mantle bequeathed by its senior class that carried the Warriors on a three-year run that featured 38 wins, two state titles and just one loss.

Those guys, however, aren't walking through the door this fall.

"Coming off what we've done here for the last two, three years, there's probably a lot of people that have some expectations of being down at Memorial Stadium and all that stuff, but that isn't necessarily realistic in terms of what we expect out of this group," said Wahoo coach Chad Fox. "Not that we're maybe not going to get down there, but expectations are things like showing up on time, being in practice, giving great effort, things like that."

The Warriors have to replace a three-year starting quarterback, one of the most dynamic running backs from across the state and six of their top seven tacklers from last year.

"Graduation wasn't really kind to us this go around," Fox said.

That No. 1 next to the Wahoo name did come with a bonus. Three seasons of deep postseason runs means this year's senior class has almost a full season's worth of additional practices and the healthy margin of victory most Friday nights meant the Warriors upperclassmen have plenty of experience, even if it's without the spotlight directly on them.

"We've got new faces in there, but the kids, they look forward to the opportunity to prove that they're worth some of the expectations that the outside world is putting on them," Fox said. "They know that there's a certain standard here at Wahoo of what and how we do things and in order to have the success we want to have, you've got to embrace those standards."

Fox described the process of backfilling its leadership gaps as a work in progress.

"There's definitely a leadership vacuum from what we've experienced over the last three years and that's a work in progress," Fox said. "We're kind of feeling that thing out right now and we're seeing some different people try to get comfortable in those leadership roles. There are some kids that are stepping up that we didn't know if they would."

The spotlight will be bright for the Warriors. The preseason top billing pairs a 26-game win streak, a pelt every team on Wahoo's schedule would love to hang in their locker room.

"Everybody's looking to knock us off and we understand that," Fox said. "But we've just got to prepare in a way that puts us in the best position."

Wahoo opens the season at 7 p.m. Friday on the road against Syracuse.

Ashland-Greenwood

If there is any way to fend off a dip in production while breaking in a brand new quarterback, a new starting running back and a host of new faces at wide receiver, a sure thing on the offensive line is about the best Band-Aid a team can ask for, which is what Ashland-Greenwood brings to the table this fall.

The size and strength up front for the Bluejays, led by Nebraska-commit Barrett Kitrell and featuring three other returners, are what Ashland-Greenwood is hoping to lean on as they get comfortable offensively.

"We always tell teams every year, you don't have to be last year's team," said Ashland-Greenwood coach Ryan Thompson. "We just have to find our path and what we can do well and I think our kids understand that. We're not going to fit a square peg into a round hole. We're going to go ahead and shape the team around our strengths."

The last two seasons have been the only two seasons in Ashland-Greenwood's eight-year stretch of winning seasons, all eight games or more, where the Bluejays finished the year with more passing yards than rushing yards.

That line also spearheaded the new leadership group for the Bluejays that traces its roots back to the spring. Three of the Bluejays lineman were named captains — Kitrell, Bennett Kush and Peyton Groteluschen— ahead of the season opener.

"They kind of have to apply to be on our leadership team and we've worked with them all summer and really it's just an extension of what we always done," Thompson said. "It's just making sure that they are the owners of it."

Ashland-Greenwood opens the season on the road at 7 p.m. Friday against Kearney Catholic.