Newton football seeks quick turnaround under new coach

Andy Swedenhjelm has already made a handful of changes to the Newton football program in his first season as head coach.

Ultimately, Swedenhjelm hopes the biggest change comes in the win column after the Cardinals went 3-6 last season.

If the Cardinals do turn it around, it will come against a really tough schedule featuring seven games against teams who were all .500 or better last year.

“We are just taking it week by week. I’m not at all concerned about who we play later in the season. Our focus is PCM right now,” Swedenhjelm said.

The Cardinals started last season 3-2 but ended on a four-game losing skid. They went 5-4 in 3A in 2018 and 7-2 in 4A in 2017.

Newton hosted Pella Christian in a scrimmage on Aug. 21. That was the Cards’ first opportunity to see what they had and continue to get better.

What Swedenhjelm found out was that the defense is further along than the offense.

“The defense looks solid. They are tough to go against in practice,” Swedenhjelm said. “Offensively, we have to clean up a lot of execution stuff. We still make a lot of mental mistakes. We’ll get there. I am pretty happy so far.”

Newton scored 25 points per game last year but that number dropped to less than 16 in the four-game losing streak that ended the season.

Defensively, they allowed 30 points per game but the number grew to just less than 37 in the final four games.

The Cardinals will have a lot of new faces on this year’s varsity roster. They’ll break in a new quarterback, two new running backs and the top seven receivers from last year also are gone.

The defense graduated the top four tacklers, too.

“It’s been a blast so far,” Swedenhjelm said. “They don’t ever prepare you for a pandemic and a natural disaster all at the same time. But we are lucky. We have a really good group of kids.”

Taking over at quarterback will be junior Zay Arguello. He was impressive in the scrimmage against the Eagles, running for two long touchdowns and hooking up with junior Keith Moko for a long TD on the first play of 7-on-7 drills.

Arguello is big and elusive and should force opposing defenses to honor his ability to break off big runs.

“I think he’s one of the top athletes in the state,” Swedenhjelm said. “He’s fast and physical. That adds an extra dimension to our offense. We are excited about him.”

The two new running backs are junior Nate Maki and senior Cade Cupples. The top six yardage gainers last year graduated but Maki did have 87 yards on 24 carries and caught one pass for 23 yards.

Maki also could be the team’s kickoff returner after averaging 24.5 yards per return last fall.

Moko is the No. 1 option at wide receiver for the Cardinals. He has great chemistry with Arguello. Senior Jack Suttek is another option at receiver.

“(Moko) had a 38-inch vertical in our combine drills the other day,” Swedenhjelm said. “He works really hard. He and Zay work together all the time.”

Newton’s offensive line could have all seniors in the starting lineup. At the scrimmage, the Cardinals went with four seniors and junior center Dallas King to start the game.

Positions are not finalized yet, but the other starters against the Eagles were seniors Lane Arrowood, Gabe Abrams, Nelson Lopez and William Muckler. Seniors Shane Bathke, Cade Smith and Brody Cazett also are battling for playing time.

Abrams and Lopez, who both played guard in the scrimmage, are each listed at 300 pounds.

Most of the linemen will play both ways. The only one not rotating in on defense right now is King.

Abrams had 16.5 tackles and 5.5 tackles for loss a season ago.

“We should have good competitions on both sides of the ball,” Swedenhjelm said. “We are rotating a lot of guys on defense to build depth.”

The linebacking core includes juniors Jaden Shannon and Braydon Chance, who are expected to start inside, and senior James Gulling provides depth to the position.

The outside linebacker spots are being contested by three players — senior A.J. Holdefer and juniors Breyten Schwenker and Reese Hammons.

The secondary has lots of depth and is the position group that does have some returners.

Moko’s 31 tackles ranked fifth last year and he also had one sack and one interception at cornerback.

Arguello and junior Adam Mattes are both back at safety and could be part of a four-person rotation with senior Josh Meyer and Hammons.

Arguello ranked sixth last year with 29.5 tackles and had one sack. Mattes, who is the backup quarterback on offense, had 20 tackles last year.

Meyer was primarily the team’s kicker in 2019, making 27-of-28 in PATs.

Joining Moko at cornerback are expected to be Maki, Suttek and senior James Wenndt.

“We are running a different defense than we have the last few years,” Swedenhjelm said. “We made quite a few changes to that side of the ball.”

The changes on offense are there, too, but may not be recognized much on the surface.

“We have overhauled a lot of the terminology so we can add some wrinkles to it later on down the road,” Swedenhjelm said.

The schedule for Newton starts out with a bang as the Cardinals play on the road against a PCM squad which is expected to contend for the 2A title again.

Also on the schedule are two teams who are getting preseason love in the 3A rankings in Grinnell and Cedar Rapids Xavier.

Oskaloosa (6-4), Marshalltown (5-4) and Clear Creek-Amana (5-4) were all above .500 last year, while Benton moves up to 3A after going 8-2 in 2A last season.

The three teams Newton defeated in 2019 — Boone, Ottumwa and South Tama County — are not on this year’s schedule.

“We just have to take advantage of the opportunity in front of us,” Swedenhjelm said. “Today, we had the chance to scrimmage Pella Christian. They gave us a great look. Next week is now our next opportunity.

“There will be a lot of things this year that will be out of our control, but we can’t let the schedule bother us. We will focus on what we can do to get better and go from there.”

Every team in 2020 will make the playoffs because of the COVID-19 pandemic forcing the Iowa High School Athletic Association to cut the regular season down to seven games.

The approach for the Cardinal coaching staff is to get better each week and hopefully be playing their best football when the playoffs start.

The Cardinals also are doing what they can to limit exposure to the virus. And the kids are buying in to needing to be extra careful.

“They are taking a lot of this stuff seriously. We talk to them about hygiene and social distancing,” Swedenhjelm said. “It’s a work in progress. Teenagers like to be around each other.

“We are getting a two-piece shield for our helmets to help. We are trying to do everything we can do to mitigate risk. I think we have a good team, and I don’t want something that we can control causing issues with us later on down the road.”

Some other changes Swedenhjelm made this fall deal with fundraising and helmet decals.

The Cardinals will no longer sell cards as a fundraiser. Instead, they are moving toward a community service day every season.

Unfortunately, Newton had a major natural disaster, which helped with deciding what the players did for their community service day, which was Aug. 22.

The Cardinal helmets will look different in 2020, too. The helmets will feature the Cardinal head made popular by former coach Ed Ergenbright, a black plain stripe that was featured on the helmets before 2010, a CFLA JJ sticker in support of the CFLA and former coach John Jenkins who passed away this past offseason and digit decals that were used in the 1980s and 1990s.

The idea behind the helmet changes is to remind the current players about what it means to be a Newton football player.

“We all sat down last night and the kids put the decals on themselves,” Swedenhjelm said. “We are trying to teach them responsibility and taking pride in their stuff.

“As we did each decal, we talked about the significance of each one and what they meant to the history of Newton football. Our kids need to realize Newton is a strong program. We need to start bringing that back and understanding the legacies that came before us and how we can build it back up and make our own legacy.”