Rangers face new obstacles

GREENWOOD Picked by many last year to finish far away from the district title race, somewhere in the stands and nowhere near the action, Greenwood surprised those, winning a District 3-3A tri-championship en route to an area playoff appearance.

A signature 21-14 win against Monahans in the regular-season finale was just as unexpected for a team that returned three starters on offense, two on defense.

This season, the Rangers are expected to be in the upper crust — third by Texas Football magazine, for example — of a six-team district with a much clearer lower tier.

Yet Greenwood again feels like an underdog. With just three returning starters on each side, it looks like the Rangers are where they were this time last year.

Except this time, they do not have do-it-all Blake McColloch, now with Texas State, nor Kinsey Williams, who rushed for 1,727 yards.

They do not have first-team all-district linebacker Bevan Moody, who decided to focus on baseball. Perhaps for the first handful of weeks this season, they will not have junior Kaden Hatley, who has mononucleosis and was expected to share snaps at quarterback with senior Trey Edwards.

And although Greenwood saw last year’s squad surpass expectations, they do not have a guarantee that it will happen again.

Or, at least it won’t happen so easily.

“Those guys (the 2008 team) set a good example for them,” head coach Steve Taylor said. “But we’ve preached to them all spring that just because it happened last year, it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again. It takes a lot of hard work, and the kids bought into that. They’ve been doing everything possible that they can do to get us back in the playoffs.”

Edwards enters the season as the only quarterback — last year the Rangers rotated three because the signal-callers were evenly skilled, the same logic for this year’s Edwards-Hatley rotation — and one of the team’s most significant leaders.

This was the role Edwards took on even before Hatley was sidelined, a role he saw as necessary because of his position and the fact that he did not want to be passive in ensuring Greenwood continues its postseason streak of 10 seasons.

“I feel like the quarterback’s supposed to be the leader, and that’s what I was this summer,” Edwards said. “I called a lot of shots with what we did this summer.

“I feel like we have the players to win. I’m not gonna say we’re gonna go out there and win every single game, but I know for a fact we’ll be ready for every game, every Friday night.”

Senior defensive end and tight end John Brown was at outside linebacker last year, and there’s a chance he’ll rotate at that position defensively. Wherever the team needs him, he’s fine with.

“We’re gonna have a good defense,” Brown said. “We’ll make it happen no matter what.”