Summer tourneys will help Faith fill QB spot
MARBLE FALLS — Former Faith Academy quarterback Travis Roeder’s graduation can be viewed as a loss or an opportunity.
Head coach Russ Roberts looks at it as the latter, and he hopes the players vying for the starting role will step up to the challenge.
They’ll get their first chance June 4 at a 6-on-6 passing tournament in Dublin.
Roberts said the Flames will take every snap they can and also will play in the Hill Country 7-on-7 Passing League that starts June 7.
As for the Dublin event, the coach said Faith is one of at least 12 programs competing.
“They’re all private schools, and they’re all about our size,” he said. “So we feel like it’s going to be a lot of fun. We get to play against our size schools.”
It also means Jake Diamond, Zach Haydon and Hanner Shipley, the cousin of former Burnet High School standout Jordan Shipley, now a member of the Cincinnati Bengals, will see plenty of time at quarterback. Hunter Manchac also is in the mix.
“Jake played a little quarterback for us last year,” the Flames skipper said. “We got Zach Haydon. Zach has gotten so much bigger and so much stronger in the last year. We’ve got Hanner Shipley, and those are the top ones, but we’ve also got Hunter Manchac, who threw the ball a little bit. Everybody will get a shot at it. But those are the three we’re looking at right now.”
Shipley, an incoming freshman, has plenty of tools, Roberts said.
“We’ll probably use him at receiver some because he’s big and rangy and there’s lots of things he can do,” he said.
While who will play quarterback will keep fans talking, the coach said the emphasis will be on passing, receiving and catching, so he will pay close attention to both sides of the ball.
“We’re looking for a dedication to defense,” he said. “We want to learn to put a lot of our eggs in that defensive basket as well as the offensive basket. That’s something that six-man football doesn’t seem to do as much, and we want to be good at that. We want to get those stops, get those turnovers, get that ball back so we can score.”
And, he added, it’s also summer, so that means he wants the players to have fun.
“What I’m looking for mostly is for the kids to enjoy themselves, have a good time,” he said. “If they have a good time, when they leave the 7-on-7 and they go back home, they’ll pick up that football first chance, throw and catch. The more throwing and catching they do, the better we’ll be in the fall. And we’d really like to throw the football a little more this year than we did last year.”