Camp Verde Middle School football could use a return to the old days.
That is the hope of 12th-year head coach Brian Pelfrey, whose Cowboys are finishing their first week of practices in full helmets and pads in preparation for their opening game Tuesday, Sept. 8, at Fountain Hills Middle School.
“It’s been a couple of years since we’ve won a game,” said Pelfrey, a sixth-grade science teacher at CVMS. “It’s not like the old days, where we could go out with 20 Camp Verde kids and march over 40 others.”
One of those players this fall looks to be eighth-grader Bailey Smith, an offensive lineman whose stepfather, Jeremiah Littlepage, is currently Pelfrey’s only assistant coach over a seven-game fall slate for the Cowboys.
Smith, who Pelfrey is looking at playing center as he decides which of a handful of quarterbacks is going to be his starter, is one of the only Cowboys to have played with CVMS since sixth grade. He was also the only player to accompany the Camp Verde High School football team to its California team camp the last week of July.
“I have to find a center who can snap the ball,” he said. “Long snapper will also be a search process. I’ve got a lot of kids out who played youth football a couple of years ago but are limited in what they can do because of their size and the number of bodies on the team.”
One of the primary responsibilities of whoever ultimately plays quarterback for the Cowboys will be getting the ball to eighth-grader Timmy Martin in space.
“Timmy tried his best and showed a little bit of potential at wideout for us last year,” Pelfrey said. “We may have to put him in different spots depending on the sets we run.”
Of the 26 players on the team, another whom Pelfrey could ask to try new things this fall, like play fullback, is defensive lineman Matt Munger — “our meanest guy” at a slight 94 pounds, Pelfrey said.
For the full story and schedule, please see the Wednesday, Aug. 26, issue of the Camp Verde Journal.
