Dragon football prepared to compete with new players

Lane College head football coach Vyron Brown is preparing to coach his third team since taking over for the Dragons in 2020.

And this will be a new team as a number of veteran players graduated off last year’s team, leaving a significant number of holes to fill on the depth chart.

“We had so many graduate that it actually affected how many players we had available for spring ball,” Brown said. “Because so many were gone, but we got some good work in and had the chance to get some young guys some significant work.”

Brown said that a lot of those young guys took advantage of the opportunity of not having to sit behind anybody to get reps, and it’s paid off as some of them seemed to have worked their way into leadership roles in the locker room as well.

That’s a good thing, especially on defense, as there are a number of new coaches on the defensive side of the ball.

Tommy Lewis came to Lane to run the defense after having served in similar roles at Tuskegee and Miles.

“We’d talked a couple of previous times about him possibly coming,” Brown said. “But we got him this time.”

Calvin Pearson joined the program this past year to coordinate special teams. Pearson has worked with Brown in the past when they were both assistant coaches at Grambling University.

“He’s done an outstanding job of recruiting and helped upgrade our personnel already,” Brown said.

As far as the actual personnel goes, four Dragons were selected as preseason All-SIAC honorees.

They were junior defensive back Walter Tatum and three sophomores: receiver Jaquez Jones, tight end Henry Calixte and kicker/punter Noah Shalz.

Brown said the freshmen coming up who were on campus did a good job of learning during spring ball and are filling holes left open by this past spring’s outgoing senior class.

“I’ve been very pleased with what I’ve seen in camp preparation and kids taking hard coaching,” Brown said. “They’re responding on a daily basis and flat out competing and learning how to practice.”

The Dragons are coming off a season in which they finished 5-5 and 4-3 in SIAC play. They’re projected by the coaches to be sixth in the conference this year out of 13 teams.

“We finished 5-5, but we had our opportunities to do better,” Brown said. “There were three games we lost in the fourth quarter, so if we limit the mistakes that led to those losses, we’ll potentially have a better record.”

The Dragons’ season is set to begin on Sept. 2 when they travel to Memphis to play Miles.

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news