Montville Juniors Impress at Football Jamboree (with Video)

Any football coach will tell you the score doesn't matter much during "Jamborees" - a series of practice scrimmages against multiple teams, a crash-course exhibition season crunched into a two-hour time slot.

So when Montville hosted Ledyard, Norwich, East Lyme, Plainfield and Windham Saturday at Camp Oakdale, statistics and scores ranked low on the list of priorities.

"Overall we're just trying to get the kids to use fundamentals and into a game situation, so that they understand how to get to the football, how to tackle and how to play football," Montville Junior coach Mike Clemons said. "The Jamboree is bringing in the town, bringing in a nice crowd, so overall it's a good thing."

Oh, by the way, Montville's Juniors (under 125 pounds) outscored four opponents, 10 touchdowns to one. It wasn't quite a game-like situation. Two teams used just half the field and ran a series of downs from the 30-yard line. After one team possessed the ball for 10 minutes, the opponent took its turn with the ball. No kickoffs, punts or turnovers were returned.

But the fact Montville played so dominantly is big news.

In the past few seasons, while the high school has enjoyed its best sustained stretch in school history with 29 wins in three years, Montville youth football hasn't made a lot of noise in the Southern New England Youth Football Conference. The Seniors posted 0-9 records in 2010 and 2009, a rapid dropoff from a 7-2 record in 2006. Montville's Juniors were 5-4 last year.

Clemons did not want to over-react to the terrific Jamboree but admitted he was encouraged by the performance and potential of a turnaround season.

"They could turn the scoreboard off in a Jamboree and I'd be fine with that," Clemons said. "The scores only matter because we're trying to execute. As a league, we've struggled a bit lately because the town has a 600-kid strong youth soccer league, so our numbers have been down. Now our numbers are up a bit and lot has to do with what coach [Tanner] Grove is doing with the high school program. Kids go to the games on Friday nights, see them winning and they want to have that in their future."

Greg Caskey, Montville youth football director, believes the league is on the upswing thanks to an increased player turnout, its strong base of volunteer coaches, contributors and parents and its wonderful town facility of Camp Oakdale.

"We have a great facility which lends itself to having six teams here," Caskey said. "This is the preseason for most teams. Youth football is about getting all the kids an opportunity to play. The state of Montville youth football is very good. We've made a lot of improvements to the concession stand, purchased new uniforms and our numbers are up."

The conference grew by one team when Stonington left Rhode Island Pop Warner League to join the SNEYFC, giving the circuit 11 teams.

"Most of our coaches played in the Connecticut youth league and couldn't justify why we were playing Rhode Island teams," Stonington youth football president Mark Wallace said. "But the most compelling reason we joined the [SNEYFC] was to give our bigger kids over 160 pounds a team to play on."

The SNEYFC offers kids under 180 pounds a chance to play. Skill position players must weigh under 150 pounds. Weigh-ins are next Saturday in Ledyard. Nobody heavier than 160 can play Pop Warner.

While many teams welcome Stonington into the grouping of Eastern Connecticut Conference towns, its inclusion gives the league an odd number of teams, thus creating the need for one team to sit out a game (a bye) each week and reducing regular season games from nine to eight.

Plainfield is the defending Senior champ, winning its first Super Bowl ever, but looks to descend back into the pack after graduating many standouts. Ledyard, Super Bowl runner-up, returns a top quarterback in Ty Ebdon and eight regulars in total. East Lyme looked big and strong in the Jamboree. Montville played competitively against Windham and Plainfield.

Windham won last year's Junior title over Griswold, while Waterford edged New London in the Micro championship. Many in the league expect New London to bounce back after a quiet Senior season last year by virtue. The Whalers will play at renovated Cannemella Field after being forced to play games on the road or at Coast Guard Academy last year.

"It should be an interesting year as always," Ledyard Senior coach Matt Schmahl said. "New London should be strong, as should Griswold, East Lyme, Norwich and Westerly. We have eight Seniors back, which is a lot at this level. We just have to wait and play the games."

Montville opens next Sunday at Camp Oakdale against Waterford. Micros play at 10 a.m., Juniors at noon and Seniors at 2. For a complete schedule, log on to www.eteamz.com/SNEYFC

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