Crandon provides Hodag football more insight at team camp

For the second straight year, Rhinelander and Crandon joined forces for a couple of days of football team camp last week. This year, that time together had even more for benefit for the RHS football team.

As the Hodags transition to a Wing-T style offense this fall, spending two days with Crandon — which already runs a variant of that system — helped to accelerate the learning curve ahead of the start of fall practice one week from today. 

“They’re a power-T team and what we’re trying to do is really similar to that. We got a lot more out of it. We were able to spend a lot more time together and work together,” Hodag head coach Aaron Kraemer said. “(Crandon head) coach (Dan) Witman’s a classy guy. His team was very, very good last year and very competitive in the Northwoods Conference. Any time you get an opportunity to go against a team that makes the playoffs, a team that’s had success, you’re going to take it.” 

Rhinelander players hopped on a bus bright and early at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday to head over to Crandon for a 2 1/2-hour session with the Cardinals. Crandon reciprocated, heading to Rhinelander Wednesday afternoon. 

The teams ducked inside the Hodag Dome for the first 90 minutes of practice due to a threatening forecast but, with a break between lines of showers and storms, they were able to head back outside to wrap up their three-hour session. 

The format for practice was very similar to when Rhinelander worked by itself — some time for individual, group and team drills on one side of the football before turning around and doing the same for the other side of the ball. 

The added benefits for both teams included the ability to be coached by some different voices for a day and the ability to square off against someone wearing a different colored jersey in team drills. 

“They coached our players on their day. We coached their players on our day for the most part, except for when we split into team groups. It’s just a good opportunity to be out here with a different team and learning from different people,” Kraemer said.

Rhinelander’s offensive install was still very much going through the teething process during camp — there were hiccups with snap timing as well as the timing and mesh points of backfield personnel in the running game. There were also flashes of promise in the passing game as junior Truman Lamers found Kyrle Vanney and Zach Germain in the corner of the end zone for touchdown passes during the Hodags’ offensive team session Wednesday.

That’s partly where working with Crandon helped. The Hodags got to see a team that’s already proficient with the style of offense they’re looking to run. 

“It’s more the nuance of, not the scheme, but the technique itself,” Kraemer said. “It’s got us thinking about what we want to do up front, how we want to do certain blocks and certain things. They’ve been doing it for a very long time. You can see, even their freshmen, we’re lining up against them and they’re getting up to the line, getting there quick. They’re on tempo. They have good fakes. Their backs are doing what they should. That’s the sign of a good program. If we can get to that point with our group, our varsity group right now, we’ll be in business.”

Kraemer admitted that the coaching staff threw a lot at the players over last week’s four-day camp, which concluded Thursday. Because of that, he said the team is still playing catchup to where it has been entering fall practice in previous years, but still ahead of where he thought they would be this year, considering all of the changes. 

“I will say with what we’ve thrown at them, I feel more prepared than I planned to be at this point last week,” he said.

Practice begins Aug. 1 for the Hodags and the first week will culminate with the team’s annual Green and White practice Aug. 5 at Mike Webster Stadium. The second week of practice will feature a four-team scrimmage where the team will cross paths with Crandon once again — as well as Antigo and Shawano. 

“It’s going to be interesting come that second week on that Friday having them here, Shawano here, Antigo here, to see where we stack up against those teams,” Kraemer said. 

Rhinelander open the regular season Aug. 19 at Tomahawk. 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].