Four hundred and thirty-nine days after being hired as the new head football coach at Franklin College, Alan Hensell will finally get to coach a game here on Saturday.
What will that game look like, given that none of the current players have seen live action in more than 15 months, is anyone’s guess.
“Nobody really knows what it’s going to be,” Hensell said, “but one thing is we want our guys to play hard, play fast and play physical.”
The Grizzlies should be more than eager to get back to business, having been made to wait to redeem themselves after an uncharacteristic 5-5 campaign in 2019. Longtime coach Mike Leonard stepped down after the season, with alumnus Hensell taking the reins just before Christmas.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]
Hensell has called returning to Franklin the fulfillment of a dream, but the gratification has been delayed. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic eliminated traditional spring practice last year, and it pushed the season back from the fall until now. The Grizzlies’ home game Saturday against Anderson will be the first one played at Faught Stadium since Oct. 26, 2019.
The new coach, though, is proud of how well his players have navigated a jumbled calendar.
“This has been very different,” Hensell said. “It’s something that has been very unprecedented, but I really believe our guys have done a great job handling the change.”
And there has been plenty of change. In lieu of a season, the Grizzlies conducted practices during the fall, very much in the same fashion that spring practice would normally go. Recent preseason workouts — a “pseudo training camp,” as Hensell called them — were disrupted by the rash of winter storms that hit the Midwest in February.
Because of both the weather and the pandemic, Franklin College isn’t where it would normally be going into a season opener (although, on the plus side, neither is any other team in the HCAC).
“You’re a little behind, because you just haven’t had as much time with the players on the field,” Hensell said, “and right now, with COVID restrictions, you don’t have the availability of having as many team meetings, unit meetings. We’re still having small position meetings, but you don’t have as many meetings the way you normally would.”
Still, the Grizzlies aren’t starting completely from scratch, despite having six freshmen listed atop the preseason depth chart. They’ve got a good deal of returning experience on the offensive line and at the safety position, and they’ve built up enough respect in the past that even with a relatively young team and a first-year coach, the HCAC coaches put Franklin in the top half of the league (fourth) in the preseason poll.
Hensell isn’t willing to settle for top half, though. Contending for conference titles became the norm under Leonard, and that bar isn’t being lowered under his successor.
“There’s a standard of expectation, and I knew that when I walked in the door,” Hensell said, “but that’s one of the things that drew me to want to come back here. Because there is a standard, there is an expectation level — and my goal is to raise that bar.
“We have high expectations within this program, and those won’t ever change.”
Even if everything else over the past 12 months has.
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”2020-21 schedule” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Date;Opponent;Time
Saturday;Anderson;1:30 p.m.
March 13;at Manchester;1:30 p.m.
March 20;Mount St. Joseph;1:30 p.m.
March 27;at Bluffton;TBA
April 3;at Rose-Hulman;1:30 p.m.
April 10;Hanover;1:30 p.m.
April 17;Defiance;2:30 p.m.
[sc:pullout-text-end][sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”Projected starters” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
OFFENSE
Position;Player;Class
QB;Dane Andrews;Fr.
RB;Derek Thompson;Fr.
WR;Ryan Poole;So.
WR;Jarrett Gibson;So.
WR;Brock Finkbiner;Sr.
TE;Orrin Schmidt;So.
LT;Evan Hosea;Jr.
LG;Justin Case;So.
C;Adam Frey;So.
RG;Colten Pipenger;Sr.
RT;Armani Christopher;So.
DEFENSE
Position;Player;Class
DE;Jireh Ojata;Fr.
DT;Owen Ogle;Fr.
DT;Tanner Swindle;Jr.
DE;Dante Darden;Jr.
LB;Kody Wilkerson;So.
LB;Charlie Moore;Fr.
LB;Aaron Black;So.
CB;Michael Heading;Jr.
S;Evan Stambaugh;Sr.
S;Nick Winders;Jr.
CB;Cam Levers;Fr.
[sc:pullout-text-end]
