Lamar shoots for third straight state title appearance
By Drake Horton, Contributing Writer
Lamar will be on the cusp of program history when it kicks off the 2017 football season.
Trying to do something that has not happend in the program since a three-year run between 2002 and 2004, the Silver Foxes take aim this year to make it to their third straight state championship game.
Back during that run head coach J.R. Boyd had Lamar built into one of the best teams in the state regardless of classification. That is what current head coach Corey Fountain is trying to do now and it looks like he is well on his way to doing it.
“I just take it one year at a time, one game at a time, trying to make sure that the tradition at Lamar stays alive as far as football goes,” Fountain said. “You know, Coach Boyd was a great mentor for me. I just try to do a lot of the same things and keep a lot of the same things in place that he had going on when he was so successful.”
Entering his fourth season as Lamar’s head coach, Fountain is an impressive 33-8 with one state championship and one state championship runner-up. Last year the Silver Foxes went 13-1 losing in the state final to Lake View.
Fountain, however, said it is more about the entire coaching staff, the work ethic of the players and the ability to move on and not look back as main reason for the success over the last three years.
“Our coaching staff over the past four years has done a good job of getting our kids in the right spot, where they need to be, and we are just trying to work hard every day to get better and we just try to take it one game at a time, one season at a time,” Fountain said. “We try not to look back in the past; we just try to keep getting better to improve what we got to work on.”
Making it to a third straight state championship will not be an easy task for Lamar this year and the main reason for that is the losses the team took on both the offensive and defensive line.
“The guys returning on offense is probably five and probably got six on defense so we’ve had to move some guys around,” Fountain said. “The key though with that is we lost our whole defensive line, so all of the guys that are playing this year, they might be a senior, some of them might seniors, juniors, but they are very inexperienced so it is going to be big that they have some success early on.”
It is going to have to be a quick learning curve for the new players in the trenches if the Silver Foxes are going to have any major success this season. Luckily Fountain does have two returning starters on the offensive in Chandler Johnson and Jordan Green.
“They are going to have to learn quick and be battle tested quickly in order to get better,” Fountain said. “As far as the offensive line they’re in different spots. Our left tackle moved to center which is Chandler Johnson and Jordan Green, he’s moved to right guard now so we’ve had to move some guys around. Like I said, the other guys that fill in are inexperienced. Up front is where you win and lose games. Hopefully we will get better each week and learn from our mistakes, try to do the things that’s going to put those guys in good situations and help us be successful.”
To add to the line issues Lamar is not blessed with the depth that it had last year.
“We are real thin, we only have about 36 players on the roster, 37 maybe, give or take,” Fountain said. “Some guys are injured, injured probably for the rest of the year; we have a couple of guys like that. Last year we had a roster of 48 to 52 and this year like 35 or 36.”
While the line issues and the depth can be detrimental to Lamar’s success this, the Silver Foxes returning starters and new players are still going to be talented enough to help reach that ultimate goal: to make it to a third straight state championship and win it.
If that happens, it would be safe to say that Lamar is becoming a dynasty once again.
