High School Football: Speedy American Fork football team should be strong once again

AMERICAN FORK — The summer football camp circuit is over and American Fork left quite an impression.

It may not be a true indication of how a team will compete, but if the 7-on-7 and skill camps do show signs of things to come, the Cavemen may be booking a repeat trip to Rice-Eccles Stadium and the 5A state semifinals. In 2007, they won a couple of the passing camps and word spread that American Fork was a team to watch out for. It proved true as it won a share of the Region 4 title and two play off games before bowing out to the runners-up from Layton.

The camps are set up mainly for quarterbacks, running backs, receivers, defensive backs and linebackers, and the 2008 Cavemen faired well in all of them. They had an MVP of the All-Poly camp in Nathaniel Olsen, and the speed of the running backs and receivers left a buzz, setting up reminders of a year ago. Of course, according to coach Davis Knight, it doesn't really matter how that group of players performed.

"We call our linemen our skill guys," he said. "Our philosophy is that it all starts up front and you build from there. We can't do anything without those guys getting it done."

The Cavemen are not going to be the biggest team in the state, but what they lack in size, they more than make up for in speed, athleticism and most of all— attitude.

"We want to go out and hit people," said lineman Sam Katoa. "When we play a team, we want them to know that they are in for a battle, that we are going to come after them on every play. We want to be the aggressors and be the team that dominates physically. If we do that, we will be all right."

With the loss of 18 starters, American Fork will not be the most experienced team. It will have to rely heavily on first-year varsity players and a number of underclassmen to fill roles. But that doesn't seem to worry this confident bunch.

"We have been waiting and preparing for this for a long time," said quarterback Jordan Lusk, who will be starting varsity for the first time. "We watched how those guys last year did it, so we know what it takes to be successful. It is great that they made it so far, but what they did doesn't mean a thing for us. We are going to have to go out there and prove to people that we can get it done as well."

Besides talking about how physical they want to be, the overall feeling among the players and coaches is that the team speed is going to be the thing that propels this team to among the elite.