By JASON KING
Leader sportswriter
It takes a lot to impress Mike Malham.
The Cabot head football coach, who will enter his 27th season at the Panther helm, has seen a little of it all. This decade alone has seen drastic shifts, from the state-title winning team of 2000, to the 1-9 train wreck that was the 2005 season, and a return to the postseason last year after a two-year hiatus.
The 2008 version of the Panthers, however, impresses him greatly.
Solid and balanced numbers, along with more overall skill speed had Malham excited as spring football began this week.
“Last year, the problem was everybody got hurt,” Malham said. “When you’re in the ninth game, and you look up and have 11 starters off the field that started the season, that’s hard to overcome.
“I think we’ve been pretty productive this spring. We have a lot of kids back from last year. We’ve got nine back on both sides of the ball. And we’re expecting to have a pretty decent team. If we don’t do well, it will be very disappointing.”
There was no shortage of talent last season, but an injury list that turned into more of a scroll, particularly at the skill positions, had the Panthers playing with a skeleton crew by the time they qualified for the 7A state playoffs with a dramatic win over Russellville during week 10.
The biggest part of that list was reserved for quarterbacks. Nathan Byrnes went out early with an ACL tear, followed by a broken collarbone for Seth Bloomberg sustained during the win over Central. From that point, the Panthers limped to the finish under center, but Malham says Byrnes and Bloomberg will both be 100 percent by the fall.
“Bloomberg is back and working,” Malham said. “Byrnes is back. He’s not going to go through contact drills, but he’s been doing everything else.”
The Panthers look good everywhere, but the offensive backfield will sport a ton of talent, and something they have not enjoyed much of in recent years — depth.
Returning at fullback will be junior Michael James, who rushed for over 1,700 yards last year as a sophomore. Vince Aguilar will join him at halfback. Aguilar started at fullback some as a sophomore before giving up that post to Colin Fuller, but sat out most of last season due to a knee injury.
Also returning to the backfield will be Chris Bayles, who Malham lists as the fastest player on the team. Bayles was yet another skill player to succumb to injury last year when he broke his ankle in the Conway game.
“We’re going to have a little more speed in our skill spots,” Malham said. “Even in the secondary with the two Bryant twins, both of them run good. Bayles is probably the fastest kid we’ve got. He runs real well. Not real big, but he’s back there. He and (Wesley) Sowell can both run around 4.5.
“James and Aguilar are not speedsters, but they’re not slow either. They’re more like 4.7s, but for us that’s not bad. But Vince is back, and him back there with James doesn’t look bad.”
The numbers have worked out quite nicely for the Panthers this spring: 28 returning seniors, 28 juniors, and more than 50 sophomores. Malham says that number will have to decrease some before the fall, but hopes that the process will be natural, and will not require a cut.
Sowell, who is also expected to be an integral part of Cabot’s full-house backfield, is currently sidelined after having his knee scoped a couple of weeks back. Les McGregor started at tight end last year, but hasn’t been practicing in the spring after a recent shoulder operation. The other tight end, Blake Carter, is currently out with back issues.
While the offense is hurting, the defense appears to be all-systems-go this spring.
The Panthers will return not only four of their starting linebackers from last year, but also the speedy cornerback duo of Hunter Hess and Zach Coy. Joe and Powell Bryant will once again start in the safety positions, giving Cabot both good speed and decent size in the defensive backfield.
“Most of the defense will be more juniors,” Malham said. “But we played a lot of sophomores last year. They are juniors that have experience. We had six guys rotate on the defensive line last year, and five of those guys are back.
“As much as we have coming back, it should look good. When you have experience, that’s something you can’t replace. They should know what to do, it’s not like we’re changing a lot. If they know what’s going on, they’re going to be one step ahead of the game.”
The vacant guard position on the defensive line has already been filled with junior Jared Maxwell. Maxwell played at linebacker last year as a sophomore, but will fill in up front for ’08.
The offensive line has also looked solid during spring drills. Returning will be senior tackles Nick Pleger and Jordan Gunn, along with guard Matt Jackson. Another pair of seniors, Blake Carter and Les McGregor, will return to the tight end positions.
“We’ve got some good competition in that offensive line,” Malham said. “We’ve got some kids that are giving them a challenge for some spots, even though we’ve got them all back, there are one or two that are stepping up.”
Malham said they have one more spot to fill on the line, but that the Panthers will have plenty of depth and good rotations up front.
Among players listed as still in the running for a starting spot on the offensive line include seniors P.J. McFadden and Zach McNeill.
Malham said he was pleased not only with the increase in numbers this spring, but in the greater number of kids who appear qualified to see playing time this fall. That is something Malham says should lead to greater depth, and more specialization.
“It gets you a step ahead,” Malham said. “Nice thing about it is, we’ve got our numbers there in pretty good shape. Where we usually practice offense and then everybody practices defense, this spring, we just said ‘you’re offense and you’re defense’ and we’ve tried to completely separate, so they’re getting more time on that side of the ball.
“Since we know what most of them can do, since we’ve got so much back, it’s working out pretty good. Instead of an hour of offense and an hour of defense, I get two hours of offense.”
