New-look Logan ready to kickoff 2013-14 football season

After going 8-2 last season and falling in the first round of the 4A state playoffs, the Logan High football team is ready to kickoff its 2013-14 campaign when they face Northriday on friday at 7 p.m.

“It’s tough, we’ve always scheduled tough,” head coach Mike Favero said on KVNU’s Full Court Press show. “Our preseason may be the toughest we’ve ever had. Northridge is, if you talk to their coach, he thinks he’s got a shot to win the 5a state title. They’ve got a three year returning starter and they have a BYU commit at running back.”

For the Grizzlies, they’ll have a lot of new looks this season.

The biggest comes on defense, where Favero said Logan will swtich to a 4-2-5 scheme, led by returning defensive lineman and Colorado-committ Sam Bennion.

“We’ve got experience coming back and we’ve got a very unique scheme,” Favero said. “I was very fortunate when (Athletic Director) Clair Anderson called me to be coordinator to learn the scheme from Gary Patterson from TCU. He literally trained us on that and he’s probably the pioneer and known as the top 4-2-5 guy in the world.”

Bennion was a defensive force for the Grizzlies last season with six sacks, and Favero said he’s not the only lineman impressing in fall camp.

“In addition to him we have Casey Coe, who is another returner one the defensive line and who’s having a great camp and doing a great job,” Favero said. “A kid named Caden Anderson and Kagen Oldham right now are defensive lineman who, where we were a little uncertain at that position beyond Sam and Casey, and those two kids have really stepped up the last three weeks and are playing really well.”

One familiar face on defense that the Grizzlies will miss will be that of Chase Nelson, who switched from defense to offense for his senior season.

Nelson will follow in the footsteps of older brothers Riley and DJ and take the reigns of the Logan offense at quarterback.

“It’s probably not fair to expect him to do what Riley or DJ did because what those guys did was maybe unprecedented in the state of Utah,” Favero said. “Chase is going to be Chase and we’re confident in him and excited to have him as our quarterback.”

Nelson will have a plethora of receiving threats at his disposal, led by returning starter Taylor Compton. Favero said the Grizzlies are deep at the wide receiver position and that he’s excited to see what the group can do.

“We’ve got guys like Cade Watterson and Chad Artist, he’s very fast,” Favero said. “Tyson Jensen, Steve Hlavaty, a young sophomore named Hartman Rechter, Kyler Freeman, we actually go about eight deep at receiver so we’re very fortunate in that regard that we have depth there and we can do some things with those guys.”

The Grizzlies were picked fourth in the KSL Coaches Poll.

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!