High school football season preview: NASHVILLE HORNETS

Losing the starting quarterback and entire offensive front to graduation means one thing to most high school football coaches: Rebuilding time.

Not so for Nashville’s fourth-year head coach Tim Kuhn.

“My coaches and I would rather think of it as reloading,’’ he said. “Hopefully these young men this year realize they have the opportunity to take over for those guys on the (offensive) line and understand the demand and hard work that it took for that group to achieve what they did.”

After back-to-back 2-7 seasons, Nashville finished 8-3 and reached the second round of the Class 3A playoffs.

Nashville does have talent returning in running backs Jaris Dalman and Hunter Schultze and tight end Royce Newman. The 6-foot-7-inch, 260-pound Newman has committed to play football at the University of Missouri next fall while Dalman and Schultze both rushed for over 1,000 yards last season.

For the first time in four years the Hornets will have a new quarterback in junior Andrew Cash (6-2, 165).

“Andrew really filled a void for us last year at free safety and we’re hoping he can do the same thing for us at quarterback. He’s really embraced this opportunity and we feel he’ll do a good job for us,’’ Kuhn said. “But let’s not kid ourselves, we’re going to run the football. That’s what we’ve done in the past and we’ve has some success doing it.”

Brown will also play on the defensive line while Newman will be one of the top defensive ends in the River-to-River Conference. Dalman and Chase Stankowski will be mainstays at linebacker.

Schultze will team with junior Ethan Reid and senior Kyle Schnitker in the defensive backfield. Cash will also play some in the secondary.

— Dean Criddle

This story was originally published August 23, 2015 at 12:37 PM with the headline "High school football season preview: NASHVILLE HORNETS."