Canterbury Football Coach Upbeat Over Team's Promise

Canterbury High School football coach Bill Jones has only been on the job for a short couple of months and already he's a pretty happy man.

Having been the Crusaders offensive coordinator before he took the head coach position, Jones figured he had a good team and that was reinforced when Canterbury beat Southwest Florida Christian 42-7 at Fort Myers.

Not surprisingly the guy who carried the load for Canterbury was running back Brent O'Neal. Fresh off a 2010 season where he rushed for 1,000 yards, O'Neal is getting offers from several Division-I colleges.

In the spring game, O'Neal was dominant, running for 236 yards on 10 carries.

"He pretty much dominated," Jones said. "He will be one of the focal points of our offense."

But for O'Neal -- who will be targeted each time he touches the ball -- to be effective he will need blocking. The Crusaders are young at offensive line but Jones was heartened when a pair of eighth graders, twins Jeremy and Jonathan Rivera, were able to open up holes for O'Neal to run through.

A spring game is mostly part of an evaluation process. While Jones was happy with what he saw from his prized running back and young offensive line, his team isn't ready to play in the NFL quite yet.

"We have to work on our passing game," Jones said. "We have a good strong running game but to be successful, we have to be more diversified and we have a lot of work to do with our passing game and special teams."

Jake Holsinger is the Crusaders starting quarterback and Jones was happy with how he has progressed. He just needs blocking and targets.

Part of the reason Holsinger may have been rusty was that he played baseball and was only involved in spring football practices a handful of times.

"We will work with him over the summer," Jones said. "We have DeSean Thomas, a big target at receiver. We have the weapons, we just have to spend the time to fine tune it."