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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

After missing out on the playoffs last season, the Pelham Panthers hope that they can reload to compete for a playoff spot in the perennially challenging Class 6A, Region 3.

One of the Panthers biggest challenges this year will be replacing another strong senior class. Only this time, many of Pelham’s new players are younger as it only has 12 seniors out of its over 90 players.

However, some of those pieces starting now got key time last year, including quarterback Dylan Smith, running back Kalib Porter and receivers Marcus Arnold and Tristan Darden, all of whom got thrown into the fire at different points in the season and found success. The hope is that experience carries over into this season and leads to good things.

No player might be a better example of what happens when you get playing time young than Jake Garner. Pelham’s veteran kicker and punter got a rude awakening when he was thrust into the game as a freshman and mishandled his first punt.

However, he recovered well from that and built confidence from then on to become the senior leader he is today.

“I played in a lot of big-time games as a young kid,” Garner said. “Being 14, it’s scary as a kid. So, after you do that, you feel like you can kind of do anything. That helps you bring confidence every day.

“So, I feel like I’m able to use that confidence to lead people to come along with me because I know there’s a bunch of young kids that did it last year, who played a lot. And if you can find confidence, true confidence in your freshman year, then you can go out there and you just play free and you have fun. That’s the most important thing.”

As one of the senior leaders on the offense, Porter has been spearheading the work over the offseason, building bonds with his new teammates and helping them progress as athletes. The result is both a good run game and passing attack that makes the offense more dynamic.

“The new guys that came in, I feel like we connected really well,” Porter said. “Over the summer, we’ve been putting in work, just keeping on grinding and bringing up those players and making them bigger, stronger and more athletic. I think we’re going to have a pretty good run game and throw game too, with young kids coming up and our new young QB Dylan Smith. I think we’re going to have a pretty good season with all the young kids coming up.”

Both sides of the ball hope to use their athleticism and speed to make up for their lack of size and get after it. Head coach Mike Vickery believes that quickness will be one of the strengths of this year’s team.

“I think overall we’ll be a little bit faster than we’ve been in the past, probably not quite as big as we’ve been from a body standpoint, but I think overall team speed will be a strength,” Vickery said.

Flipping it over to the defense, it’s a unit that also suffered a lot of losses over the offseason, particularly All-County linebacker Will Felton. However, they have promising players on the rise as well, including Uriah Barginere, Joe Hampton and Javian Gee.

This will be a team that wants to press the attack and get after the football up front. Their goal is to get off the field as quick as possible.

“We’re just trying to get off in three plays, limit the other team’s possessions, and that gives us a better chance to win,” Barginere said.

Both sides of the ball will have some new opponents to square off against both inside and outside of the region. Chelsea and Spain Park replaced Briarwood and Homewood within Class 6A, Region 3, and the Panthers have experience playing those rivals in non-region play the past two years.

While they’ll play familiar county foes within region play, their non-region matchups will take them to some uncharted territory. The Oak Mountain series remains on the schedule, but the next two years will see Pelham take trips outside their usual area to Pell City, Leeds and Fort Payne.

Many of the players like Hampton see that as an intriguing challenge to put their skills on display to people who may not pay attention to football in the greater Shelby County area.

“For me, each game should be like a rivalry game,” Hampton said. “We should want to win each game as bad as we want to win a rivalry game. We should want to go 10-0. We should want to go undefeated. And I think playing teams outside of there, we’ll see where we stack up against other people and it’ll just let people know we’re here.”

Stepping up and showing out will be key to the Panthers succeeding, especially with a young team coming into new roles or positions.

Vickery knows it’s crucial to find the best fit for those positions, and he aims to put his players in the best spots possible for the team to succeed.

“The ones who win the most as high school coaches are coaches who can figure out ways to get their kids in the best positions possible,” Vickery said. “You may grow up as a wide receiver or a linebacker or running back, but maybe we see your future at linebacker or d-lineman or o-lineman. I think the past four or five months, we’ve been moving some guys around, moving some pieces around, guys who we think can help us at a high level that we’re able to find the best way to maximize their talents the most.”