New class, coach for Longhorn football

A new head coach and a new class will give fans something to look forward to this high school football season.
With the retirement of Dan Lenners, Nathan Gaswick, an assistant on last year’s team, takes the reins to the Chase County football squad.
The Longhorns have four seniors on the roster, Chase Rowley, Kenyan Biesecker, Tristan Ferguson and Jake German.
Personnel wise, Gaswick likes his group of players, calling them coachable, hardworking and willing to do what is asked of them.
Last year’s returners don’t see much difference from their previous years under Lenners.
“Honestly, our philosophies are similar in many aspects. I believe you have to be able to run the football to win games offensively,” Gaswick said. “We will not change formations much other than wide receiver placements. I believe our scheme this year is an accurate representation of our hard-working and disciplined community.”
The offensive backfield has stood out so far, plus Gaswick likes the development he’s seeing from the offensive line.
“I believe our offensive line is both developing and improving quickly, but right now our backfield is a great set of guys,” said Gaswick. “No one is selfish and all of them understand their role in our scheme.”
Rowley led the Longhorn’s with 460 receiving yards in 2019. Ryan Bernhart is the team’s leading returning rusher and also caught 10 passes last season.
The team’s discipline and consistency have also gotten noticed by coaches.
Defensively, the Longhorns will use multitude of different looks and fronts that will keep offenses guessing.
Ferguson is the Longhorns’ leading returning tackler. German, Berhardt and Dawson Mollendor also finished last season with at least 26 tackles.
He added, his biggest concern when coaching high school athletes is needing to keep things simple.
“[It] must make sense to our kids and we need to implement schemes that specifically target the strengths of our athletes/team,” said Gaswick. “Many coaches try to overthink or overcoach the game. Kids need to be confident in their roles, understand what they are doing, and play fast and physical at all times.”
Depth, unfortunately, could be a problem.
“I believe that our starting group has the potential to do some great things this season but our numbers are down and our second group is very young,” Gaswick said. “They will need to continue developing to help add more depth throughout the year.”
The Longhorns prepared for this season with summer weights and conditioning. Coaches were able to hold a shortened team camp near the end of July.
Now that the season is here, Gaswick said, with the current state of the world, he believes everyone is very excited to experience Friday night football.
The Longhorns will open the season Friday at Chadron.
“With new changes in all aspects, I believe that Game 1 will help show us where we are and how we stack up against C1 opponents,” Gaswick said. “I believe that Chadron and Ogallala will be our greatest challenges in non-district games.”
The Longhorns’ season kicks off with four-straight C1 games. Gaswick expects each to be extremely competitive games.
CCS then faces its five C2-6 district opponents, Valentine, North Platte St. Pat’s, Hershey, Bridgeport and Gordon-Rushville.

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