Huskies returning focus to ground game

The past two years for the Howard Huskies have been a departure from the norm for head coach Barney Hester.

Instead of a running the ball with regularity, Howard took full advantage of the passing ability of Courvoisier King and receiving talents of Alphonso Stephens. But after they both graduated, the Huskies again will look toward setting the tone on the ground by controlling the clock and the game’s tempo.

“Ideally, you run the ball, run the clock, play good defense and play good special teams, you have a good chance to win ballgames. Last year, we were not known as a running team — we had a quarterback who threw for more than 2,000 yards and a receiver that has 1,300 yards in receptions. We did what we had to do,” Hester said. “Hopefully this year, we’ll get back to some of those roots of the option that we liked to run and try to make our football team better all-around and not put our defense in a bind with field position.

“With the passing game, sometimes it’s do-or-die. With the running game, you get 3 or 4 yards a few times, and the chains move. We’ll throw the ball, we have some good receivers back, but we’d like to run it.”

A key part of keeping the option offense going is King’s replacement at quarterback. Senior Avery Vining and sophomore Quinton Sewell are both in the running to lead the Huskies.

Vining is no stranger to the Howard offense, having seen time at running back and wing back. The familiarity with the offense, should be a plus.

“It’s very, very exciting,” Vining said. “I’m always up for stepping up for a new challenge, and I just want to make the most of it.”

The offensive front, however, won’t be going through a transition. Howard will has experienced offensive linemen back in seniors Daniel Allen, Gabe Howard and Craig Russell.

“Knowing the game depends that much on us; it’s an honor to be on the offensive line,” Howard said.

Graduations and the shuffling of positions also will force new faces into action on the defensive line and all four linebacker positions.

“Athletically, we feel like we’ll be better than we were on both sides of the ball last year,” Hester said.

The Huskies have displayed improvement since Hester’s arrival at Howard in 2013, posting the first winning season in program history and narrowly missing the GHSA playoffs last year with a 6-4 record.

Howard, however, does not appear to be content with last year’s success.

“Our numbers are good; we’ve had some of the best summer workouts we’ve ever had at any place I’ve been, the enthusiasm has been great. The thing we want to do is improve on a 6-4 record. Maybe it was the first winning season, but the first winning season is over with,” Hester said. “We want to achieve that next level, we want to start challenging people for playoff spots, and then we want to move it up to the next level.

“You can’t ever be satisfied.”

This story was originally published August 13, 2016 at 4:16 PM with the headline "Huskies returning focus to ground game."