Viking In The Sky: Recap/Evaluation of 1st Hopewell HS Football Practice

Hopewell Township – The Matt Mottes Era as Hopewell Head Football Coach began as the Vikings held their first official practice of the season.

Hopewell held a two and a half hour plus practice tonight at Tony Dorsett Stadium and Hopewell Sports Nation was in attendance for its duration.

Serving as ‘The Viking in the Sky’, I was able to watch this 2024 team and started to get familiar with their personnel and their possible strengths and plan of attack.

Tonight, I’m going to share my initial impressions and some players that caught my eye. Keep in mind, my eyes were wandering around to different position drills so I obviously didn’t see every rep.

Im going to list 5 things that stood out and 5 players that caught my eye for having a strong opening session.

Five Things That Stood Out:

1) Size of Hopewell: When I say size, I’m referring to roster size and size of some of the players. It remains to be seen if every player keeps playing but the current roster has close to sixty players (57). That’s a huge jump from previous years. A key to a winning program is numbers and this roster jump is encouraging.

The size of some of the players also was noticeable, especially the offensive and defensive lines. If Hopewell is going to win, the line needs to improve from years past.

2) Plenty of Teaching: The coaches were doing a lot of teaching as they ran drills throughout the night. Mistakes were made, which is to be expected but when they occurred, it was followed by teaching moments and reminding the players what went wrong. A lot of 1-on-1 talking between the Hopewell coaches and the players.

3) Tough Love: When I say teaching was going on, don’t mistake that for the coaches not being tough on the players.

It’s football, a physical sport, of course some yelling took place but the practice also had laughter, bonding with players and coaches, along with some fun at the end.

Some of the ‘Tough Love’:

—With practice scheduled to start at 5:30 pm, the coaches weren’t happy when a few players walked out of the locker room at 5:28 and 5:29, while the rest of the team was ready to go. It goes without saying, those players heard about it.

—This was the first high school practice for the incoming 9th grade class and at least a couple times I heard a coach yell, “This ain’t junior High anymore at certain players.

—When they got into team drills, a couple times the offensive line groupings didn’t run to the line and they heard about it, “Run to the line like you want to play football.”

4) Physical: This Hopewell team will want and strive to be a PHYSICAL TEAM, I can promise you that.

5) Youth Will Be Served: The much talked about incoming 9th grade class will play this season and have a big role. Despite being young, a group of those kids will play and play early. It’s only one practice so we have plenty of time to talk about individuals in future stories.  Let’s let them stack a few practices together.

5 PLAYERS THAT CAUGHT MY EYE:

1. TE/DE James Gill- Played strong at DE and complimented a few times by coaches, “That a boy Gill”. He’ll also be a weapon on offense.

2. K Rocco Marcantonio- Was regularly booming fields from 40-50 yards. Looks like a D-1 kicker to me.

3. WR Avery Bokor- Didn’t see him drop a single pass from any of the quarterbacks. Future Playmaker.

4. RB Josh Brunton- Kid runs hard and doesn’t take a single play off.

5. Kingston Krotec- Really liked what I saw from him on defense. He’s an athlete and has the makings of a really good safety.