Each year Iowa high school football coaches have a lot that they are happy and excited about as they start the new season, and for West Central Valley head coach Eric Addy, it’s not a fancy new stadium or flashy jerseys but experience.

The last few seasons for third year head coach Eric Addy and the Wildcat football program have included rosters littered with youth and starting line ups dominated by underclassmen. This year, coach Addy is graced with more upperclassmen than has ever happened within his head coaching time so far with the Wildcats and he voiced his happiness about the matter with Raccoon Valley Radio.

“I’m happy to see our experience. Now we’re not getting guys who are freshmen and sophomores, having to start and throwing them into the fire on Friday nights, well those guys are seniors and juniors now. Me and my coaching staff always talk about we’re the youngest/oldest team that we’re going to play. Our juniors, most of them are going to be three year starters which isn’t usually the case until your senior year and a lot of our seniors have been three year starters as well. Our juniors and seniors are almost essentially we kind of consider them in the “same grade” where our juniors have a lot more experience because they were thrown in the fire so young and we came in our first year and we were like we don’t care and essentially cleaned house and we were starting five or six freshmen in the game on Friday night,” explained coach Addy.

With the upperclassmen talent and leadership returning, coach Addy and his staff are seeing nearly a completely different picture from last year.

“I don’t see a scenario with us right now where we’re playing more than two sophomores on Friday night and we’re not probably going to be playing any freshmen cause usually if you’re playing a lot of freshmen, you’re not having that much success,” stated coach Addy.

Coach Addy and the Wildcat football team will begin their second full week of practice and the second day of full pads and full contact.