As we transition into winter, the Salida High School Football season comes to an end. This year, the Salida Spartans finished with a record of 2-7. Head Coach Matthew Luttrell said, “Overall, I thought we did okay. We could have done better but when we lost Tyus Winkler, that drastically changed who we are,” Luttrell said.
There are factors that impact a team overall that can be different than skill, like persistence and drive. On any sports team, all it takes is one player to bring one of these – factors and Winkler brought the energy. “Tyus had that burst that we needed,” stated Luttrell. In the first game of the season, Winkler tore his ACL. This was hard on the program because it took away “that burst.”
Luttrell explained that this is the second year they have run this specific offense. The team is continuing to learn and is still new to it. “Year two in this offense, we’re still growing. We’re still young,” said Luttrell.
Luttrell explained that the team is continuing to develop under the young leaders, and will be more impressive in years to come. “Led by the juniors, upcoming seniors for next year and everybody underneath them. They’re going to be pretty tough,” he said.
He then explained that once the season ends, the coaches never stop putting in work. Around this time, coaches will go through film of their games and analyze the plays that they called and why they called those plays. “At this time of year we will review—watch every game film—and ask questions like, ‘why did I call this?’ Or ‘why didn’t we call this?’,” Luttrell said. This means coaches are involved year-round. Despite his injury, Winkler brought the coaches together at this conference. “When we had our all conference meeting, every single coach in our conference talked about Tyus, even though they had never played against them,” Luttrell said
Luttrell stated that football for students at Salida High School is also a year round endeavor. “As a school—as a whole—we need to get bigger, faster, and stronger,” Luttrell remarked.
This past season, many upperclassmen stepped down. Luttrell said that the younger players are going to be really tough and the freshman and sophomore classes are going to be something special. Luttrell thinks that the junior class are a good crew as well, and are football hungry. He also made a remark saying that this group would get better every game nearing the end of the season.
Looking into the future, there will be many more football seasons at Salida High School. With little experience in this offense, it will only get better, so look forward to watching the Salida Football Team next season.
