Apparently, it’s going fine.

Just fine — if you’re talking about the important stuff, like participation in the weight room and in seven-on-seven scrimmages. What I hoped to hear — but didn’t hear — was head coach Mark Grounds, or any of his assistants, really talking up a kid or two. Every year at this time, there’s at least one potential difference-maker that the staff is excited about. But this year, all I got was …

“Our kids have the best kind of ability, which is dependability,” said Grounds.

That’s great. Can we depend on them to win six or seven games this year? To beat Springfield High? To hold onto the ball?

Of course, Grounds hopes so, as much as we all do.

I want to emphasize that I don’t think the Crimsons lack confidence. I do think that they’re keeping it to themselves, though. It reminds me of the summer of 2003, when Grounds and his staff hardly made a peep in the offseason. Two years before, they’d started off 3-1 but finished 4-5, narrowly missing the playoffs, then spent all of the next offseason practically guaranteeing they’d complete their “unfinished business” in 2002. But by the middle of that campaign, the Crimsons were 0-4, dealing with a spate of injuries, and had replaced their senior quarterback with a promising sophomore. They missed the playoffs, but won three of their last four games.

Kind of sounds like more recent history, doesn’t it?

Like 2003, this year’s Crimsons will come into the season expecting more from themselves than anyone expects of them. Like 2003, this team will be junior-dominated. And, I have a hunch that coach Grounds is getting back to the style of football that launched JHS to success that year — that bruising, physical personality that so characterized the 2003 squad, embodied best by the running and tackling of then-senior Brent McAdams.

I don’t think we’re going to see much of the wing-T this year. I really don’t. Running backs Jacob Mills (a junior) and Martez Turner (a senior) are back this year, which means you can stop dreaming about 60-yard touchdown runs right now. Grounds wants to get back to making opposing defenses feel every yard of his team’s march down the field.

“We’ve always been more powerful than fast,” says Grounds, though he insists that Tez Turner, for all his girth and bulk, can run a 4.8-second 40-yard dash.

Other strengths the Crimsons already know they have, as camp gets under way, are at quarterback, where junior Blake Schnitker is the undisputed starter after a strong second half in 2006.

“He’s going to be a very dependable quarterback for us,” said Grounds, referring to Schnitker’s relative cool under pressure, good decision-making and accurate passing, assuming he’ll have somebody to throw to this season.

JHS is also strong defensively, particularly at linebacker, where Mills and senior Todd Linear will line up. There’s also just enough experience coming back in the secondary, in Quinton Leetham, Braxton Stewart, J.T. Rowe and Zach Meyer. Unfortunately, the Crimsons are currently unsettled on the defensive line.

With the exception of returning senior Darren Hoots, Jacksonville’s got a lot of holes to fill on the offensive line, too, though there’s no shortage of large young men to try out in the trenches. Grounds would like to be more sure of his linemen, but the IHSA changed some of its rules regarding summer football participation, so the Crimsons didn’t get to test their line play against actual foes at their annual team camp at McKendree College.

In other words, the offensive linemen (whoever they’ll be) won’t see their first real action together until week one, against Jerseyville.

So, anyway, this is how much I know about JHS football right now. In the coming weeks, I’m going to find out a lot more. That’s my job. Whenever I know something, or have a new opinion about the team, you’ll either see it in our sports section, or here at my blog.

If your team is the Jacksonville Crimsons, a whole lot of NOTHING is what happens. Things have been too quiet around the JHS football program this offseason. Where once there was buzz, there’s now silence.

But if you listen closely — very closely — you can hear the indignation and old pride beginning to stir itself up, just in time for helmets and pads.

“We’re an afterthought,” said JHS head coach Mark Grounds last week, when I called him to ask what’s up. “Everybody has put us down as an afterthought, and that’s fine with us.”

I hardly believe it’s FINE with the Crimsons to log on at various Web sites and see that nobody is talking about them. But I know that Grounds will use this to his team’s advantage. The silent treatment Jacksonville’s been getting at sites like Illinois High School Sports (.com), KHQA and even the de-facto Central State Eight football site, SHGfootball.com, suggests that JHS’ regular and potential opponents aren’t worried about this year’s Crimsons.

Of course, it’s still only mid-July. There’s a lot of football fans who haven’t yet stirred themselves up. So all of this indignation might be a bit premature.

Still, to folks outside of Jacksonville, last year’s 4-5 record might have signaled a reassuring “return to form” for the once-uppity program. In a CS8 where Sacred Heart-Griffin, Chatham Glenwood and Taylorville are generally accepted as the entrenched powers, there’s just no room for anyone else, except for maybe one more “city” school — we’re talking Lanphier, Southeast and Springfield High.

Gosh, nothing would put mist in the eyes of Capital City gridiron fans like seeing Springfield High back in the playoffs. Wouldn’t it be great, come early November, if Crimson fans could stand up and say, “Sorry, Springfield. You’re all gonna have to settle for Jacksonville again.”

But that wouldn’t be the last laugh. No … come late November, after Sacred Heart-Griffin wins its third consecutive state title, all of Springfield can stand up and say, “Sorry, Illinois. Sorry, Chicago. Guess you’re all gonna have to settle for the Cyclones again.”