STINNETT—The Wildcat football team traveled to West Texas High’s campus Tuesday and Wednesday to attend the annual ‘The System’ Football Camp.

Summer football camps are many times some of the first organized practices that players get to participate in, unofficially marking the start of football season and jump-starting the excitement of Friday night football. With real practices still over two weeks away, teams and players are allowed to run drills and gain insight from staff members and former college players at every position.

Donny Walker runs ‘The System’ football camp that is currently based out of Florida. He said he and his staff travel throughout the nation putting on camps for teams that are looking to implement a wide-open, spread offense with an emphasis on rapid pace in their program.

This is Walker’s 13th year coming to the Texas Panhandle and working with teams in the area. The participants travel from near and far to attend. Amongst the communities represented here this week are Eastland, Anson, Canadian, West Texas High, and Brackettville. Other teams have come from as far north as Sedgwick Kansas, and from as far south as Uvalde.

“We typically have well over 100 kids in camp, and I think we have somewhere around 130 players this week,” said Walker.

“The good thing about what we do within this camp is that we—the staff and the attending coaches and players—use the same terminology as far as play calls and positions,” he said. “We all coach the same concepts, but the biggest thing we can bring to these players and coaches is implementing the fundamentals. We try to maximize the repetition that these kids get to reinforce what makes this offense so successful when it’s used correctly.”

Walker noted that there are many teams who try to use a spread offense, but fail miserably.

“We make sure these kids are getting a maximum amount of reps in each drill we teach, so they have a great fundamental foundation to build on and be successful,” he said.

Walker enlists a staff of 10 for the camps. Each member of the staff has played in this offense, coached in this offense, and has been around it for many years. He pointed to Wildcat native Ben Arbuckle as a great example of this camp.

“We coached him from a young age, and he has a great understanding of this offense and has developed to such a high level that we have hired him to help coach this camp,” he said.

Canadian Athletic Director and Head Coach Chris Koetting said he is excited to bring his team to this camp, which is specifically designed for high school football teams that run a high tempo, spread offense. This plays right into the hands of what Koetting has implemented for the Wildcat program.

“We started coming to this camp in 2007 when we began using this offense,” Koetting stated. “This group that puts this camp on brings in some top talent to teach these kids, and it’s been very beneficial to us.”

To the casual fan, when the topic of having a spread offense is discussed, attention is typically paid to the skill players who are the backs and the receivers. However, with approximately 20 linemen in attendance, Koetting spoke to what he values for their camp experience and participation.

“To me, I’ve always felt like the interior line is where the game starts,” he said. “Those are the most important guys on the field. We have a great group of linemen at this camp putting in the work necessary to build the foundation that we construct our team with.”

“Coach Hamilton does a tremendous job with the lineman at this camp,” Koetting noted. “A great deal of footwork is detailed in this camp, as well as hand placement for added leverage that helps our linemen improve their skill-set.”

Asked what he felt was most beneficial about running a spread offense, Koetting said, “The pace is such that allows us to wear down a team. Another benefit is that every skill player will touch the ball at some point in the game and that keeps everyone involved and knowing that they are making a contribution to what we are doing here at Canadian High School.”

Another benefit to having an offense that operates at a swift frequency, he said, is that the Wildcat offense will generally have more offensive opportunities in any given contest, giving them a tactical advantage offensively to dictate the game.

Coach Koetting is a stickler for repetition. “We run a feeder program with our junior high team. Those guys run the same plays and the same offense, and these kids know the plays by the time they reach high school. I think our offense is repetition-based. We get a lot of reps doing the same thing that we do. We don’t do a ton of different things, but we do what we do, over and over—not till we get it right, but until we can’t get it wrong.”