August 14, 2019 at 1:36 p.m.
Team preview: RHS football
New head coach Aaron Kraemer looks to change culture, turn around Hodag football program
Team preview: RHS football
There have been a lot of changes and upgrades in and around the program since last season. Aaron Kraemer takes over as head coach for Chris Ferge, who was relieved as the head man after five losing seasons - essentially taking a demotion to the team's JV2 head coach.
Facility upgrades continue, including a new artificial turf surface at Mike Webster Stadium that will debut Sept. 6 vs. Lakeland, and there's buzz around the program after Kraemer led the RHS boys' track team to its first conference title since 1967 last spring.
Yet, there are barriers the Hodags have to overcome, most notably a long history of substandard results. The droughts have been long and dubious - no trips to the playoffs since 2012, no Bell Game win over archrival Antigo since 2006, no winning season since 1994 and no conference championship since 1989.
Kraemer said he knows for the team to snap some of those dry spells and put the RHS football program on the path to becoming a winner, things have to change.
"Our motto is if you want to get results you've never had, you need to do things you've never done," he said.
That starts with a new attitude, a new philosophy and, above all else, a new culture. Since being promoted from offensive coordinator to head coach in April, Kraemer has tried to improve both the team's skills and its mindset. Staying positive is the name of the game and the goal in practice is not to work harder but work smarter - all in an effort to gain an edge over the competition on Friday nights.
"I believe culture defeats strategy, culture defeats talent," he said. "If your have a grade-A culture with kids that understand the direction of the program and we're all moving in the right direction - from the coaches all the way down to the first-grade kid who's playing flag football and their parents - if the direction is constant and everybody understands the way we're moving, then people can make a difference."
That may help a team that, despite a 1-8 record last year, actually had a better score differential (-9.9 points per game) than it did when it went 3-6 in 2017 (-13.1 ppg).
There are several pieces in place for this year's squad. Drake Martin's now a senior. He won the GNC rushing title last season and has rushed for more than 1,100 yards each of the last two years. Also back are ball-hawking safety Peyton Erikson, all-conference lineman Trevor Knapp and all-conference tight end Connor Lund.
The battle to replace the graduated Brock Lieder at quarterback is coming to a head as senior Nathan Kempf and junior Quinn Lamers present their closing arguments during a four-team scrimmage tomorrow at Northland Pines.
Defensively, while the Hodags were roughly a touchdown better per game last year, allowing 23.1 points per game opposed to 30.8 points per game in 2017, they were still last in the GNC in total defense and against the run - something that worked against the team as it tried to play catch up in close contests.
Gary Zarda is back as defensive coordinator after a couple of years away from the team and is attempting to make tweaks to the Hodags' base 3-4 package to make it a more stout unit.
Here are five things to know about this year's squad:
On offense
After playing primarily a spread-based offense for five years under Ferge, the Hodags have gone back to a more traditional pro-style set under Kraemer, who used the I-formation sparingly the last two seasons as offensive coordinator and is now committing to a more balanced offensive look now that he has full control of the offense.
Regardless of the set, expect the offense to revolve around the ground game - especially Martin, who rushed for 1,162 yards (5.4 yards per carry) and 13 scores a season ago.
"The strength of our offense is definitely our offensive backfield," Kraemer said. "We have quite a few returners coming back. Drake knows that I could say great things about him all day. Where I need him to work is the leadership part of his journey. He's a great athlete and he's going to be a great athlete going into your other seasons too, but what's going to set him apart is the way that he leads - and that's what we're going to be working on with him."
Martin is joined in the backfield by Erikson and junior Walker Hartman, who saw limited touches last season. Kraemer would like to see more of a timeshare this year, indicating at last Saturday's Green and White practice that the target for Martin would be 18-20 carries per game. He averaged 24.1 carries last year. That's mainly because Martin, Erikson and Hartman will also be counted on in the defensive rotation. Working those three in, along with underclassmen Tim Fox, Caleb Olcikas and Cayden Neri, will be vital to Kraemer's goal of keeping players fresh for the fourth quarter.
"If Drake's going to play both ways, Walker's going to play both ways, Peyton's our hardest-hitting safety, we're going to have to get them (a rest) somewhere," he said.
Knapp, a second-team all-conference center, anchors the line and is joined by junior Alex Olson at right guard, a big, physical specimen listed at 6-foot-5, 285 pounds. Juniors Ben Sinclair, Tyler Olson and Neil Mathews all worked with the first-team offense during last Saturday's practice.
Lund had six catches for 100 yards last season, the most of any Hodag player not listed at running back. Junior Jackson Labs is back after catching five passes for 63 yards last year, and impressed with a 32-yard touchdown reception over tight coverage in last Saturday's practice. Fellow juniors Jacques Tulowitzky, Max Spaulding and Travis Towne will be relied upon not only as pass catchers, but blockers in the run game.
"Our receivers, they've been the biggest surprise of camp, because we've asked them to get up and start blocking different players in the secondary," Kraemer said. "If you look at the film from this past weekend, they were a reason why a few of those long runs were long runs, and not five-yard gains. That's the different between us being a mediocre three-yard-per-carry type team to burst in and out and be the top of team we want to be."
Who's the QB?
Kempf and Lamers have gone head-to-head for the starting position much of the offseason. Lamers experienced a couple of health setbacks, breaking his right hand twice since the start of April, but showed no lingering effects of the injury on his long touchdown pass to Labs in last Saturday's practice.
Kempf has been on the quarterback depth chart each of the last two years but has not taken a snap in a varsity game. It was Lamers who got the start last October in the finale against Lakeland when Lieder was benched following a spate of turnovers. Lamers went 8-of-20 for 120 yards and an interception in a 24-18 loss to the T-Birds.
Kraemer said Friday's scrimmage will be the last chance for the two to state their case to be the Hodags' starting signal caller this fall.
"We look at tangible things you can see on film and intangible things. When the tangible things don't set you apart, then the intangible things are what's going to take the day on this," Kraemer said. "I would say by the end of the week we'll have a clear understanding of who that's going to be. Next week we'll go into out preparation for Prescott knowing who are starting quarterback is going to be. The guy that's behind him is not going to go play another position. He'll be the backup."
On defense
In Erikson, Martin, Knapp, Hartman and Lund, the team has its top five tacklers from last season returning. Erikson recorded a team-high 64 tackles - 19 more than Martin - despite missing a game due to a concussion. Erikson also had a team-best two interceptions.
"Peyton is our secret weapon defensively," Kraemer said. "He's the type of player that we try to free up in coverage a lot of the time so he can run to the football. He just has a nose for that. He has a tracking mentality, gets to the football and makes plays. Coupled with those guys in the defensive backfield, look for those guys to make a splash in the run game this year."
Senior Payton Johnson joins Erikson in the secondary along with Spaulding. Lamers and Nick Kriesel have both seen time and cornerback in camp. Martin and Hartman are key at the inside linebacker positions and Lund played a high percentage of the team's defensive snaps last year as "Hodag" backer, essentially a hybrid outside linebacker/defensive end position.
Knapp is the most experienced on the defensive line. Sinclair has moved from linebacker to nose guard and Alex Olson may be used as a big run stuffer, when he's not on offense.
One way or another, Kraemer said he and Zarda both know to succeed, the team must stop the run better than it did last year when teams rushed for 272.3 yards per game - and 5.6 yards per carry - against the Hodags.
"If we can take away you turning, handing it off and running for five yards every play, that gives us a distinct advantage," Kraemer said. "We've been talking a lot about how we stop the run, how we force things back inside, how we rally to (the ball) and how we tackle. Gary's put together a good scheme to not only let us do that, but protect us from deep threats, too."
The GNC
WisSports.net has installed Mosinee as the favorite to win the Great Northern Conference title this year, after finishing second a season ago. Kraemer agreed with that assessment and pointed to a couple of other perennial GNC favorites.
"I think they're going to be a tough team to beat. Medford's a tough team to beat. Antigo's a tough team to beat," he said. "They not only reload but they coach their kids from the beginning of their youth careers all the way up to high school, in the same offense, the same defense. They've been doing it forever and that's something I have a lot of respect for."
While Kraemer believes Rhinelander has the tools and the mentality to compete in the GNC, he knows the Hodags will have to prove it to those on the outside of the program looking in. WisSports.net picked Rhinelander last in the seven-team conference after going 0-6 in the league last year and 2-28 vs. the GNC since the start of 2014.
"All of those teams, until we show we can beat them, we better be preparing like we never have before," Kraemer said. "Our job is to make sure we're prepared to play those teams and keep ourselves in it and utilize our game plan - which is keeping our kids fresh and keeping them mentally ready to play. Hopefully, at the end of the year, we come out on top more often than not."
Scrimmage look ahead
Rhinelander will see one of those GNC foes, Lakeland, in Friday's scrimmage at Northland Pines. Northern Elite (Niagara/Pembine/Goodman) rounds out the four-team field in which each team will get 12 offensive snaps and 12 defensive snaps against each of the other three teams.
Kraemer said the goal for the scrimmage will be similar to the Green and White practice - to work on the team's base package and set the tone for the season opener Aug. 23 at Prescott.
"At the end of it who's going to show up and who's going to want to make that trip to Prescott," he said. "I haven't talked to the kids a lot about Prescott yet, but I'm going to let them know that we're going to take the kids that are going to play. That's a focus type of thing. If you want to get on the bus to play Prescott, you better have the best scrimmage and best week that you can ... That's the thing we're going to do this week. We're going to find out who deserves to be on that roster and who's ready to play a football game (next) Friday night."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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