Bear River football preview: With new head coach, Bears hope to improve from winless season
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- Bear River’s Ryker Jeppsen runs the ball during the Golden Spike Game at Box Elder High on Sept. 3, 2021.
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- Trampis Waite
GARLAND — For the first time in two decades, Bear River High has a new head football coach, Trampis Waite.
The transition has been anything but orthodox.
Waite was teaching in Southern Oregon and got hired by BRHS in December but had to finish his teaching contract, so he couldn’t come out to Garland full time until June.
He relied on other coaches to run offseason programs, but Waite got out to the school for a week to run a camp with the team this spring.
Waite picked Dave Putnam as his defensive coordinator, then Putnam went to Layton Christian in May to run the school’s strength and conditioning program plus coach track and field.
So Waite tapped incoming linebackers coach Jacob Batke, a former college teammate of Waite’s at Eastern Oregon University, as the new DC.
Things have mostly leveled out. The Bears did team camp at Eastern Oregon, they have this week of practice off and Waite is at the school full time.
Waite figured that coming in to coach a team a year after it went 0-10 would require him to play the role of motivator.
“I just wanted to create some excitement, right? We need to re-energize it,” Waite said in June.
The players are actually motivated to win on their own.
“We’re really tired of losing, it took a toll on us last year, we had lots and lots of people quit and Bear River kind of needs this” senior offensive lineman Kaden Zaugg said.
There’s nowhere to go but up.
Bear River went 0-10 last year, its first winless season since 1950, and the school ultimately removed 20-year head coach Chris Wise.
BRHS brought in Waite, an Oregon native and former college quarterback at Eastern Oregon.
As an EOU assistant coach, Waite had Utah as part of his recruiting area. Other than that, he had few previous ties to Utah or the Bear River Valley.
Waite, who’s in his 20s, comes in with the spread offense and a “strict but fair” coaching style.
“The change is very big, but I feel like it’s going to be very beneficial for this year’s season. Last year was very lackluster and this year we’ve changed it up a lot. New plays, new everything really, and I think that’ll help us have a winning season,” Zaugg said.
Senior Ryker Jeppsen and junior Owen Olsen are competing to be starting quarterback. Waite said whoever doesn’t win the starting role will probably start in another spot.
The QBs, backs and receivers have spent the offseason learning a spread offense (or relearning it if they played on a spread-offense team in little league).
On defense, Bear River will run a 3-3 stack and sit back in coverage often. Waite said the 3-3-5 was always going to be BRHS’ new defense, so it dampened the effect of the coordinator switch this spring.
“I think we’re going to look different on Friday nights with our schemes, coming from what they’ve been doing, the veer and all that stuff. We’re going to take what’s easy, were going to spread the ball around and I think, like I say, I think we’re going to put on a show on offense. The wins will come, but we have to stop some people,” Waite said.
A lot is still the same at Bear River. Zaugg is 5-foot-10, 225 pounds — a.k.a., the size of a typical Bear River lineman.
Though the program’s numbers are a little better this year, plenty of players will have to play both ways. Still, the energy that players say Waite brings is fueling some optimism.
“Of course the end goal is always state champs, but I think we definitely need to start out with what we feel comfortable getting, being the best in our region, showing the teams we lost to last year that we’re back and we’re ready to kick some butt,” junior Tyson Braegger said.
The schedule starts with with Morgan (defending state runner-up), Clearfield (6A), Highland (5A), Box Elder (Golden Spike Game) and Region 11 favorite Green Canyon as the Bears’ first five foes.
If there’s any consolation, it’s that four of the first five games are at home (seven of the 10 total games are at home), so Bear River will at least have home comforts as it goes through the typical early season bumps and bruises.
WHAT’S NEW
The coaching staff, the uniforms, the slogans, where the team went for summer team camp and a whole host of other things are new.
The uniforms have a white helmet with a chrome paw on the side, an all-black home uniform and an all-white road uniform.
QUOTABLE
Head coach Waite made one guarantee regarding the new uniforms: “We’ll look good; we gotta play good now.”
FACTS and FIGURES
2021 season: 0-10, 0-5 Region 11. The 0-10 mark was unlucky as the Bears were plausibly one play away from winning three separate games.
2022 strength of schedule: 51-60 (.459). Four of the Bears’ five nonregion games are against 6A or 5A teams and the fifth nonregion game is against Morgan, and Region 11 should be tough once again.
Players to watch: Ryker Jeppsen (QB), Owen Olsen (QB), Tyson Braegger (LB/RB), Tydon Jones (RB), Nixon Weston (OL/DL)
Returning starters: Waite said it’s about five on offense and five on defense, but plenty more players started anywhere from two to five games in 2021.
Strength/weakness: Speed and skill/depth
NOTES
The Golden Spike Game series against Box Elder stands at 72-27-2 in favor of Box Elder. In terms of games decided by one possession, the series is tied 16-16-2.
Bear River meets Salem Hills (Oct. 12) for the first time in school history and meets Highland (Aug. 26) for the second time in school history.
First-year head coaches at Bear River since 1950 have averaged 3.9 wins and 5.6 losses in their first season coaching.
SCHEDULE
All games 7 p.m.
Aug. 12: Morgan
Aug. 19: Clearfield
Aug. 26: at Highland
Sept. 2: Box Elder (102nd Golden Spike Game)
Sept. 9: Green Canyon*
Sept. 16: at Logan*
Sept. 23: Sky View*
Sept. 30: Ridgeline*
Oct. 7: at Mountain Crest*
Wed., Oct. 12: Salem Hills
* — Denotes Region 11 game
Connect with reporter Patrick Carr via email at pcarr@standard.net, Twitter @patrickcarr_ and Instagram @standardexaminersports.