El Dorado football coach Steven Jones said last week he hadn't read the predictions in the 2021 Hooten's Arkansas Football Magazine. The Wildcats were busy all summer preparing for the season, which officially begins with practice today.
El Dorado was picked fourth by the magazine in the 6A rankings behind Greenwood, Lake Hamilton and Benton and ahead of Jonesboro. Interestingly, the coaches' poll picked El Dorado to finish third in the 6A East behind Sylvan Hills and Jonesboro and ahead of Searcy, Pine Bluff, West Memphis. Marion and Sheridan.
Named to the preseason Super Team from El Dorado was offensive lineman Devin Walter, linebacker Patrick Sixbey and quarterback Sharmon Rester.
Rester, a senior, began last year as a quarterback/running back/receiver weapon for the Wildcats. Since the spring, he's been the team's full-time quarterback.
"He’s starting to show more leadership skills. He, throughout the summer, has improved his accuracy. That was an aspect of his game he needed to work on. He’s starting to put more touch on the football. The short throws and checkdowns into the flat and things like that," said Jones, who said the quarterback has turned into a team leader.
"On the field, more leadership and things like that. The kids are responding to him well. As far as the football side of it, just the accuracy and knowing when to put touch on the football. He’s improving in both of those categories."
Rester emerged late in his junior season and began showing the potential that would land him on a preseason Super Team list. He will enter this year with expectations from both inside and outside Union County.
“By the end of the season last year, he was getting a ton of first-team reps at quarterback. We knew he was a good player," said Jones. "But, yeah, to have him be the guy throughout the summer, we wanted to do as many camps and 7-on-7s as we could just to throw him into game-like situations to continue to improve in that area.”
The summer was good for Rester and also the rest of the team. It was, pretty much, non-stop action for the Wildcats from camps to 7-on-7s.
"I’m just proud of how hard our kids have worked this summer. They’ve done everything we asked them to do," said Jones. "The thing that stood out the most is how they’re taking care of the little things, all the way down to keeping their locker cleaned up and just taking care of their bodies and hydrating and getting ready for the next day. All the things we’re asking them to do, they’re doing a great job of that. Those little things are going to carry over and help us out this fall.
"We had a really action-packed June. We had a lot of 7-on-7 and camps that we participated in. Our team participation was great - 95 percent of our guys didn’t miss a day this summer. That was great to have everybody involved every day. Our guys show up and work hard. In July, we focused more on us. We only participated in two camps. Most of July was against each other. Really, that’s to pull back a little back from a physical standpoint as far as contact and all of that goes to try and give our bodies a little bit of time to recover and time to prepare for a long season coming up."
When asked for Wildcats who stood out in the summer, Jones first mentioned receiver Kamron Bibby, who ran a 4.4 at a camp at UCA.
"Kamron has had a really good summer. He’s a competitor. When the ball is in the air at wideout, he’s going to go get it," said Jones. "He’s done an outstanding job of catching the football this summer. I think he’s cleaned up his route running. He’s becoming more of an overall receiver."
Bibby will work at outside receiver with DeAndra Burns, Jr. Jackie Washington and RJ Thomas will play on the inside with Connor Black rotating into either role.
"We have a good first group of receivers, right now. TJ Dunn is another guy who’s had a good summer and continues to get better," Jones said. "That group is probably the deepest on the team as far as how many guys we have that we feel confident we can throw out there."
When pressed on who is El Dorado's fastest receiver, Jones said Bibby or Washington in the 40 with Burns the fastest in the 100. The fastest player on the team might be Rester, who was clocked in 4.39 at the SMU Camp.
Defensively, Jones said, "Ahmayus Young on the defensive line has had a great summer. Hard-working kid, added some weight, which was needed for our defensive line. We needed to get a little bit bigger in that area. I think the line we throw out there this season will look the part. We had some smaller guys playing last year but we’ve added some weight, added some strength and Ahmayus is one of those guys. He’s playing right around 250 right now. I think he finished up last season probably at 225 on a good day."
The Wildcats switched to a 3-4 base defense in the spring.
As for the preseason prognosticators, they're not worth as much as the glossy paper on which they're printed. Jones said he feels good about this year's team.
"I just think there’s a lot of positive buzz in our community right now. People are excited about Wildcat football being back. I’m ready to get to the season. But we want to make sure we have a great couple of weeks of fall camp leading up to that. There’s just a lot of positive energy buzzing throughout the community," said Jones, who noted other coaches have noticed, too. He said OBU coach Todd Knight said as much during a camp.
"He just kind of elbowed me halfway through camp and he goes, ‘The Wildcats are back aren’t they?’ That’s something people have been seeing all summer long. They’re seeing the talent we have on our team, the overall team speed and the playmakers we have. There’s some good stuff going on for sure.”