Fourth-year Seoul American head football coach James Davis. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
Fourth-year Seoul American head football coach James Davis. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
Senior defensive end Xavier McDaniel stands 6-foot-5 and weighs 270 pounds, but size wasn't as big a factor favoring the Seoul American Falcons football team last season as they had hoped. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
Senior quarterback Myles Haynes is one of the straws that could stir the Seoul American Falcons' football drink. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
YONGSAN GARRISON, South Korea – Hope sprang eternal in the Seoul American football camp a season ago.
Big, beefy linemen could be found up and down the Falcons’ roster, bigger than on any other Division I team in the Pacific, giving rise to the feeling that Seoul American could host its first large-school title game since 2008.
Seven games and five losses later, those hopes were dashed. And coach James Davis and his charges learned the grim, difficult way that size doesn’t always matter – in fact in some cases, not at all.
“Size doesn’t always determine strength,” said Davis, the fourth-year coach of a Falcons team that begins its 2015 campaign on Friday at two-time defending Far East Division II champion Daegu; kickoff is at 5:30 p.m.
Though Seoul American outsized eventual D-I champion Kadena as well as Daegu, each team possessed something the Falcons did not – speed and quickness, which enabled the smaller Panthers and Warriors to have their way with their sizeable but slower foes.
“Team speed was obviously what they had,” Davis said, particularly of Kadena, which “had the veteran players and that tipped the scales in the end.” Kadena rallied past Kubasaki 41-27 for the D-I title a season ago.
The Falcons began and ended that season with victories, but those games sandwiched the five defeats, including a 40-0 thrashing by Kadena on Sept. 20, a 17-0 shutout loss to Kubasaki on Oct. 4 and a 32-18 defeat against Daegu on Oct. 17. And Davis said he could see the writing on the wall.
“The first couple of plays against Kubasaki, I could see we were in trouble,” he said. “The first couple of plays against Daegu, I could see we were in trouble. We didn’t have the team speed to match them. You can’t coach speed.”
Davis said he feels more confident in his interior players’ abilities this season. They may not be as big size-wise, but Davis says his roster possesses more of the speed that he needed last season.
Headlining that effort is senior holdover Myles Haynes, who steps in at quarterback to replace graduated Max Weekley. Rico Howard transfers in from the States and brings with him a winning attitude, Davis said.
“We have a different culture, a different mindset, a couple of move-ins who have been vocal leaders, positive leaders,” Davis said. “It’s always nice to get transfers who have played the game before.”
The Falcons hope to build around Haynes and Howard with a supporting cast that can free up the guys who butter the team’s bread.
“They’re a good 1-2 punch,” Davis said. “If we’re successful, it’s because of them and everybody else is complementing them. It’s no secret.”
What it will take to get the Falcons back on a winning track, Davis said, is a key victory, perhaps at Daegu on Friday, to give the team momentum.
“The first couple of games, we’ll answer a lot of questions,” the key one being whether the Falcons possess the speed to keep up with opponents, Davis said. “Can we stay with them? Are we able to cut them off or are we chasing them? We’ll find out Friday.”
