Coming off their best campaign since 2005, with even higher expectations entering head coach Jason Bachtel’s second full season at the helm, the Howard Payne Yellow Jackets began football practice for the 2022 regular season Thursday.
“The best thing that I’ve seen is we see a lot of energy, a lot of excitement, and we see a lot of retention from the guys who are returning,” said Bachtel, who guided the Yellow Jackets to a 7-3 record during the 2021 fall season. “We also see a bunch of guys who are coming in that are learning and picking up our offense, defense, and special teams systems really well, along with our overall culture and core values of our program from how we wake up, to how we eat breakfast all the way to how we approach bed time sleep. People are excited to be at Howard Payne and excited to see everything that goes with winning again.”
Bachtel reported 130 players originally reported to the first practice Thursday, a number he expects will increase before the Sept. 3 season opener at Texas Lutheran.
“The exact number is still growing, we still have a few more guys who are coming,” Bachtel said in a Friday interview. “We returned all the guys from the spring which is about 75. By the time we get everybody here it should be about 60 new guys, so about 135 total.”
During Thursday’s and Friday’s workout, the Yellow Jackets were in helmets only. By next Tuesday, however, Howard Payne will be going full force in practice.
“The NCAA just adopted a new acclimation period for Division III football,” Bachtel said. “Our first two practices were with helmets only. Those are non-contact days where we’re just teaching the fundamentals and trying to get guys in shape coming off the summer. Saturday, Sunday and Monday, the third, fourth and fifth days, we can put on shoulder pads with no pants and knee pads. You get to do more of a one-on-one, very light contact stuff like tackling drills. Day 6 is the first full contact day now. We get one practice up to three hours a day and a walk-through, but the walk-through is non-traditional in that you don’t get to take any field equipment, including a football. We have to be real creative with how we learn, but the walk-throughs have been very beneficial so far.”
Howard Payne has scrimmages lined up Aug. 20 and 27 – one against a new foe, and another in-house.
“We’re going to scrimmage a new prep school out of the Temple-Belton area called Mission Tech Prep on Aug. 20 at 11 a.m. at Gordon Wood Stadium,” Bachtel said. “The following week we’re going to do an intrasquad here on campus, the 27th, going into our first ball game.”
Though the Yellow Jackets have just two preseason practices in the books, Bachtel stated there have been some early head-turning moments.
“There’s been some young guys stand out, but the biggest improvement I’ve seen so far is just how far our defense has come along, led by Jimmy Jakubowski, Peyton Lowe and Aaron Alderete,” Bachtel said. “It’s been really fun to watch those guys continue to improve and grow in our defensive system.”
