Tim Pujol is entering his 17th season as Yokota Panthers coach -- more than any of his predecessors in Yokota's 40-plus-year history of football. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
Tim Pujol is entering his 17th season as Yokota Panthers coach -- more than any of his predecessors in Yokota's 40-plus-year history of football. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
Yokota Panthers senior quarterback Ty Dotson played a season ago for DODDS Europe Division I champion Ramstein. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
Yokota Panthers junior center Christian Sonnenberg provides the block as senior quarterback Marcus Henagan hands off to senior fullback Jamarvin Harvey. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan – For decades, Yokota has been viewed by many in the Pacific as high school football’s gold standard.
Thirty-one Kanto Plain titles, 13 from DODDS Japan, five Rising Sun Bowl wins and two Far East Division I championships will do that to a program.
With a drop in enrollment to about 250 from their heights of 400 and beyond in the 1980s and 1990s, the Panthers embark this season on a first – playing football for the first time as a Division II team.
Yokota’s division level may have changed, coaches and players say, but the expectation has not. Panther football teams play for titles, no matter their level, and this and future seasons moving forward will not be the exceptions.
“The Division II target may be new, but the goal is the same, play for and win a championship, whether D-I or D-II,” senior quarterback Marcus Henagan said during practice a week before Yokota’s first game. The Panthers visit Robert D. Edgren in Friday’s opener; kickoff is at 7:30 p.m.
Still, things have been different the past couple of years for a Yokota program that dominated the D-I scene in 2011 and 2012, winning all its games except one and capturing Far East D-I titles by scores of 34-6 and 55-8 in successive years against Kubasaki.
Since then, the Panthers have gone 7-9, something that hasn’t happened in Yokota football since 1997 and 1998.
“We’ll have to play better in the regular season,” said Tim Pujol, in his 17th season as Panthers coach. “We’ve had a losing record and we’ve had a tough time competing, with the Okinawa schools in particular.”
Yokota must also play better against schools in Japan to have a chance to play in the D-II title game Nov. 7 at the site of the Korea D-II champion. “We have to do that before we even think about a trip to Korea,” Pujol said.
Panthers football doesn’t possess the physical size it did, especially in the line during the D-I title years. Plenty of front-line players return, including Henagan, his backfield mates Jamarvin Harvey and Shota Sprunger and a line anchored by junior Christian Sonnenberg.
Henagan also has company at quarterback – fellow senior Ty Dotson transferred from Germany and could split snaps. Dotson is more a dropback passer, while Henagan can tuck the ball and take off running.
“Marcus is one of the best if not the best running back we have,” Pujol said. “To put him in the backfield adds an extra dimension to his game and to our offense. It’s a nice problem to have.”
A Yokota team that over the years has trademarked a punishing ground game will step out of the comfort zone again, as it has in recent years, venturing into the same spread territory that other D-II teams have used.
As is the case with most D-II teams in the Pacific, depth is a problem; Pujol says the Yokota program is “a few players away” from fielding a competitive junior varsity team.
“We don’t have the numbers,” Pujol said.
“We plan to be competitive at Division II and hope to be competitive against everybody,” he said. “We hope and expect to compete for the Kanto championship.”
If the Panthers make it that far, the D-II title game would mean a school-first visit to Osan, Humphreys or Daegu. “I hope we’re in that position, Pujol said.
