Written by: Keller Sherman
After a winless 2022 campaign in Tim Hoppe’s first year at the helm in American Falls, the Beavers will look to make major improvements in year two. Hoppe sees this as an opportunity for his team to surprise. Coming off a winless season, not much will be expected of the Beavers and Hoppe believes that this will lead to teams overlooking his squad and thereby giving American Falls an opportunity to surprise everyone and pull off a big upset or two. The Beavers are even younger than last year, but Hoppe believes that if he can get the young players to buy in, American Falls could do something special in 2023.
Wyatt Anderson, Brian Cervantes, Brock Bailey, Beau Brower, Dom Nichols, and Pablo Murillo are the only seniors on the American Falls roster for the upcoming season. Additional notable returnees include juniors Austin Adair, Adrian Carvajai, and Michael Torres. Five of these players received all conference honors in 2022 with two first team selections and four second team selections among them. Wyatt Anderson and Brian Cervantes were first team defensive selections at defensive line and linebacker respectively. Anderson was also named to the second team all conference on offensive line. Austin Adair was a second team honoree at both wide receiver and defensive back while Adrian Carvajai and Brock Bailey were also honored to defensive second team at defensive lineman and linebacker respectively.
Hoppe points to four players that he will miss most this season, all of whom received all conference honors in 2022. The Beavers will start a new player at quarterback as Josh Smith, a second team selection is gone. “Josh took on a huge role on the offense stepping in and playing a position he hadn’t played before and was the leading passer, rusher, and scored the most TDs. His toughness will be greatly missed,” Hoppe said.
Adrian Vega excelled on both the offensive and defensive line and was named to the first team all conference team for his skill on the offensive line. Hoppe explains why Vega will be missed as he states, “Adrian was likely the strongest kid in the conference and a straight work horse for the team. We were forced to move him around the offensive line due to injuries and he ended up playing center, guard, and tackle at different points during the year. He played every snap of offense all year and it was very hard to take him off the field on defense as well.”
Adrian Angelo routinely made big plays in big situations and was named first team all conference at wide receiver for his skill at this position. “Adrian was the definition of a big play threat,” Hoppe said. “He scored receiving touchdowns of 65, 54, 53, and 42 yards and averaged 24 yards per catch. He also had to step in and play running back for a game and ran for 84 yards.”
Aaron Pearce is the last player that Hoppe talks about in detail that will be missed dearly. “Aaron was our best defensive back and didn’t give up many receptions to opposing receivers, and wasn’t afraid to come up and make a tackle either,” Hoppe said of the first team all conference defensive back.
Dax Brower will be the expected starter at quarterback after missing last season with a knee injury. “He has a quick release and a big arm which will help greatly in the passing game,” said Hoppe.
Zak Grigg will step up as a sophomore and is expected to see time at both wide receiver and running back on offense, while Jaden Gomez will make an immediate impact at wide receiver and defensive back. In addition, offensive and defensive linemen Benson Taylor and Salvador Ortiz will be significant additions to the roster.
American Falls is expected to utilize a spread offense that uses different formations. “We have a lot of athletes on the field who can run and catch, which should allow us to spread the ball around a lot,” Hoppe said. “We return both starting wide receivers (Beau Brower, Austin Adair) and have a couple of big play threats coming up from the JV team (Zak Grigg, Jaden Gomez). It took nearly the entire season last year, but towards the end we finally found our identity on offense and will be looking to bring that into the beginning of the season this year. We will look to spread the entire field and use different formations to give us an advantage in numbers.”
The defense will also see some major changes as the coaching staff went through a massive overhaul in the offseason. “We will be switching up our defense next year based on the personnel that we have,” Hoppe explained. “By changing from a 4-2-5/4-4 to a 3-3-5/3-5 front it allows us to play more kids primarily on one side of the ball. Our goal is to put the 11 fastest, most explosive players on the field and move them around a lot to make it more difficult to read and block.”
“We have five all-conference players returning on defense that will give us a solid nucleus and a lot of athletes coming up from the younger grades,” he added. “Brock Bailey and Brian Cervantes give us a solid linebacking core, Adrian Carvajal and Wyatt Anderson are difficult to block up front, and Austin Adair will set the pace in the defensive backfield.”
Hoppe hopes to see more speed and agility from his defense as he states, “We just need to play faster. Our defense played fairly solidly last year once they got comfortable in the system, but as a young team we were a little wide eyed and that caused us to play slow at times. If we line up correctly every snap and play fast, everything else will work out for us.”
There have been some growing pains with the adjusting to an offensive scheme that relies heavily on throwing the football, but Hoppe believes his players have adjusted and will be much more ready to execute this season. “I’m excited to see Dax get back on the field. It was hard to come in and try to install a pass-heavy offense at a school with players who have been running wedge or toss 9/10 plays for their entire football career. They were forced to learn how to run routes, how to catch a football, different blocking styles, different pace of play, and we did all of that with a kid who had always played RB in that offense taking the snaps,” Hoppe said.
He added, “Now that our kids have a year in the system, and we have a true QB we should see a huge uptick in offensive production. Our sophomore class is full of good athletes (Zak Grigg, Gavin Adamson, Kahlen Hernandez, Sawyer Bolgen) who could play a big role in how we play this season. I am expecting a big leap for Austin Adair and Jaden Gomez going into their junior season. Austin is a three-sport athlete who was already one of the top players in the league as a sophomore and one of the hardest working kids in the school. Gomez tried football out for the first time ever last year and is a tall receiver with great hands who will only get better.”.
If American Falls is going to be a team that steps up and surprises people, the offensive line will have to excel. “The offensive line will make or break our season this year,” Hoppe said. “We will only have one returning starter from last season in Dom Nichols, who started the last 4 games of the season at center after coming out for football late last year. Wyatt Anderson was a great lineman for us last year (2nd team all-conference), but as a 160-pound kid who was put there by default really projects better as a tight end offensively, and taking him off the line will help him on defense. There are a lot of young kids working hard to break into the starting lineup, and regardless of who wins the spots we will be much larger than last year.”
Just check out the lineman competing for playing time:
Dom Nichols is 6’5 and 320 lbs
Pablo Murillo is 5’11 and 300 lbs
Benson Taylor is 5’10 and 230 lbs
Colton Oliver is 5’11 and 235 lbs
Aaron Vega is 5’8 and 230 lbs
Salvador Ortiz is 6’0 and 210 lbs
Gavin Neibar is 5’10 and 235 lbs
Cesar Pelacios is 5’10 and 220 lbs
A home game against Malad to open the season gives the Beavers a great opportunity to start things off with a win. A 1-0 start would go a long way as the next two games will be challenging. American Falls can show they are truly ready to contend by winning one between a road date at Aberdeen followed by a home game against West Jefferson. The Beavers then head west to the Magic Valley for a road tilt against Filer before remaining on the road this time heading east to face Ririe.
Teton visits American Falls before another trip west this time to face Wendell. Conference play then concludes the season as the Beavers face Snake River at home then travel to Marsh Valley. Hoppe knows that there are great players all around the conference both on his team as well as the Eagles and Panthers. “The Bastian brothers from Marsh Valley are both very fast kids and dynamic athletes. Andy Serna from Snake River was all-conference on both sides of the ball. Both teams have a lot of athletes who will be hard to deal with,” he stated.
Though it will not be easy, Hoppe still believes that American Falls is ready to shock people and show how far his team has come after a winless 2022 campaign as he states, “I think we have a shot to surprise a lot of people coming off of a zero win season. We were such a young team last year (9 seniors) and we have another young team this season (only 6 seniors), if we are able to get the young kids to focus there is a lot of athleticism there that will give teams problems.” Watch out for the Beavers to pull an upset or two and set the tone for the future.