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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

2023 brought a lot of hard lessons for the Oak Mountain Eagles, and in particular first-year coach Shane McComb, as the team failed to get going in an always difficult Class 7A, Region 3 to finish dead last.

The Eagles will enter the 2024 season on a nine-game losing streak after posting the worst record in school history. However, they also enter with a sense of urgency to not let that happen again.

McComb entered the job knowing it would be a multi-year rebuild, and this year’s team is just the next step in it. It’s evident in talking with the coaches and the players that the culture is changing in the locker room and it’s different from when the head coach came in last year.

Part of that comes in having a full offseason with the players, something that cannot be understated in preparing for the challenges of 7A football. Another part is because of the revamped systems that McComb’s staff has put in place.

It became clear last season that McComb’s systems from his previous school in California weren’t the right fit for this group of Oak Mountain players. However, with that aforementioned full offseason and a new offensive coordinator in Jerad Holder, the Eagles will have a new look this year.

The hope is that both systems better take advantage of what Oak Mountain’s players can do, especially since talent still remains on either side of the ball.

The passing game in particular should take a jump with Will O’Dell entering his third season as a starter, and his confidence and comfortability in the system should help him make plays to a dynamic group of wideouts.

All of the Eagles wide receivers bring something interesting to the table, whether that’s cornerback speed in Sean Ray, baseball success in Zach Fitzgerald or a high jump background in Walker Shook. How those will translate into the receiving room is yet to be seen in game action, but the raw potential is there along with an experienced quarterback.

Marty Myricks will lead the way at running back, and while he will likely pick up from where he left off as one of Oak Mountain’s main backs last year, he’ll have a young offensive line to play behind and one that also doesn’t have much depth.

Youth is a theme across much of the team with this being the second straight year that the Eagles will have 13 seniors, so it’s up to those seniors and the coaches to continue to set the tone and standard for what Oak Mountain football will look like going forward.

Some of those veterans for the defense will be Nico Varvoutis and Caleb Jaworski up front, Colton Moore at linebacker and captain Cole Kelly in the secondary.

They’ll lead a diverse group including coverage specialist Colby King, pass rusher William Yoter and the big and fast Peyton Gamble, and they’ll also have size in the form of 6-foot-2 Daveon Smith and 6-foot-3 Ethan Walton on the line and Blake Silas at defensive back.

The Eagles definitely have lots of potential this year, but past teams have as well. The best Oak Mountain teams emerge from the forge of Class 7A, Region 3 as even better teams, while lesser sides crumble and miss the playoffs.

The region will once again be a gauntlet and complement a trio of non-region rivalry games against Briarwood, Pelham and Chelsea, meaning there’s no rest for the weary with a meaningful game every week.

Internally, the team’s goal is to get to a point where they can compete in every game even if they end up on the wrong side of the scoreboard. That would certainly be progress from last season, but the Eagles will have an uphill climb to achieve that and take that next step in the rebuild.

 

Prediction: 3-7. Even with all the disappointment of last season, it still looks like the Eagles are taking steps to move their program in the right direction.

Changes needed to be made on both fronts, and switching both the offensive and defensive systems from McComb’s old California schemes to ones better suited for this team is a solid start. Almost every position has at least one player who has the athleticism and skill to be a good starter, something Oak Mountain needs as its depth develops.

However, this is still a smaller team going up against the toughest region in the state, and victories will be hard to come by.

The Eagles are well aware that they are building for the future even if they want to compete in more games this season. To do that and start flipping results, they’ll need to perform better in one-score games, something that plagued them to start 2023 before the schedule gave way to a gauntlet.

While I think they’ll win a couple more games than last year against teams closer to their skill level, the bottom line is that Oak Mountain needs to show progress this season whether that shows up in the win column or not. Anything else would be seen as a failure from a fanbase that has long craved success even as it has largely eluded them.