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Head Coach Don Simon (center) talks to his team after a spring practice. NEWS-GAZETTE PHOTO/J DANIEL PEARSON
During a year when the pandemic cancelled spring football, delayed the start of the regular season, resulted in cancellations and regular season games being played in December, Harmony Head Coach Don Simon did an outstanding job of holding a young team together.
Playing a ton of sophomores, the Longhorns were outscored 149-42 at the beginning of the season and quickly fell to 0-3. But the young team rallied to win four of their last six and only a four-point loss to seniorladen rival St. Cloud kept Harmony from posting a winning record.
Fast forward five months, many of those young Longhorn players are now upperclassmen and Coach Simon believes they are ready to make a move to the next level.
“More than anything a sense of normalcy has started to return,” Simon said with a chuckle. “Because of Covid last year a lot of young guys on our team had no idea that spring football existed. But in all seriousness, the first half of the spring camp has gone great. A few sessions have been a little sloppy, but the effort has been there all spring. The players are working hard and want to get better and that’s all you can really ask for. There’s a lot of optimism as we look forward to the fall.”
That optimism stems from the fact that Harmony will return the majority of starters on both sides of the ball – many of them just rising juniors. It is a fact that that is not lost on Simon.
“We played a lot of players on varsity last year that normally would have been on the junior varsity,” the fifth-year head coach said. “They are now a year older, a year bigger and a year stronger. You start to develop a trust factor with your juniors and seniors and we’re certainly beginning to see that with this squad.”
Harmony will return its entire starting offensive line, as well as starting running backs Tyler Emans and Cooper Richards, quarterback Ayden Parks and several wide receivers. Emans, a speedster who placed third in the 100-meters at last week’s district track championship, had a breakout year last season by rushing for almost nine hundred yards and 13 touchdowns while gaining over 9 yards a carry.
Operating the triple option, Parks directed a run-centric offense that averaged more than five yards a carry and nearly 30 points a game over the final six contests of 2020.
“Tyler could really turn some heads this season,” Simon noted. “He’s bigger, faster and stronger than he was last year. Although we will still run the ball a lot, we will probably throw the ball more this year. We threw Ayden into the fire last year and our offense was pretty much one dimensional. He has gotten a lot more comfortable at quarterback and by throwing a little more it should open things up for us.”
Although the Longhorns lost some talented starters on defense, including linebackers Michael Marino (42 tackles, 11 TFL) and Juan Gomez (97 tackles, 12 TFL), the Longhorns return eight starters and Simon believes they will be an improved unit.
Joshua Moss (6-1, 210) got thrown into the starting lineup as a sophomore and responded with 60 tackles and four sacks; while Brayden Adams (45 tackles, 4.0 sacks, 1 interception) was another standout sophomore starter for the Longhorns last season. Daniel Watson (6-2, 220) played football for the first time as a junior last year and Simon is high on his potential.
“He’s blossomed into a big, agile defensive lineman from a year ago and could become a force for us,” Simon said.
On special teams, Harmony will also return its kicker/punter Kevin Levigne – giving the Longhorns 19 full or part-time starters returning from the 2020 season. The Longhorns will compete in the same district as rival St. Cloud, along with Melbourne, Viera and East River.
“It’s a tough but fair district. I think a lot of those teams have about the same talent level and should make for a competitive district race,” Simon noted. “The key to our season will be to stay relatively healthy. I think we have a talented football team but not a ton of depth at some key positions. We are going to need to avoid injuries at key positions.”
Harmony will conclude its spring practices with a May 20 game against Ocoee at Austin Tindall Park.
