With Alcoa gone, A-E coach sees a path to state finals
By Steve Williams
Having to deal with Alcoa is not in the cards this season.
The Tornadoes, who dealt Austin-East a 49-6 loss last year, have packed up their 10 straight Class 3A state championships and joined Class 4A.
Their departure has opened up new possibilities for A-E and many other 3A teams on this side of the state.
“In my last count, you’ve got at least 10 teams in Class 3A that can legitimately make the state championship game from the east side of the state,” said A-E Coach Stanton Stevens last week. “Before, there was one team – Alcoa. Now there are 10. So it’s going to be pretty exciting in 3A football around here.”
Just to be sure, Stevens was asked if he was including the Roadrunners among those 10 teams. “Oh absolutely,” answered Stevens, laughing heartily. “Absolutely, there’s no doubt about that!”
Austin-East returns three starters on offense and three on defense, but there are many others returning and some new talent, too.
“We are going to have a two quarterback system,” said Coach Stevens.
Nymire Jackson, a 5-5, 135-pound sophomore who threw all of A-E’s touchdown passes last season, has been joined by junior transfer Spencer Moore (6-1, 195). “He’s pretty good,” said Stevens. “He’s been pushing Nymire all spring. We think he can be really good also, so we’re pretty fortunate to have two quarterbacks and not just one.
“We’ll just play them as it comes. It may be for the first two games one may play more than the other. We don’t know how it’s going to work out right now. We’re not even worried about that, because we don’t have to change anything. They are interchangeable.”
Other returnees include junior David Weaver, a two-way starter at OL and DE, sophomore Dikyeis Towns (WR and free safety), senior D’Andre Hundley (Sam LB and tight end) and senior Jarvis Henderson (Mike LB and RB).
Others coming up to help lead A-E this season are freshman WR/DB Marcos McCord, senior DT/OT Tylee Jackson (6-3, 260), sophomore OL/DL Brannon Hunt (6-0, 276) and freshman RB/LB Keyvon Booker.
Forty-three players are currently on the roster.
“We’re not very deep, but we’re pretty good,” said Stevens, but added that the team needs to stay healthy. “That’s why we did not scrimmage anybody this first week. We want to limit our contact and how much we bang.”
The Roadrunners will be trying to stay healthy as long as they can.
Stevens thinks the strength of this year’s team is at quarterback.
“I think we’ve got two quarterbacks that could start at a lot of different places,” he said. “And then our skill guys are pretty good this year. We are better at quarterback this year and our linebacker corps is really good.
“I feel really good about the guys coming in. We can have similar production that we had last year on the defensive side as far as our run-stopping capability. And I think we are a little bit better in the secondary than we were last year.”
Stevens got his first head coaching job at Austin-East in 1999 and guided the Roadrunners to a state title in 2001. Last season was his first year back at A-E.
The Roadrunners will begin their season on the road at South-Doyle Aug. 22.
