Hounds cooking with raw steak

FORT MADISON – After spending a few minutes with Fort Madison Head football coach Derek Doherty, it’s very clear this year’s Bloodhound football season could be a season of the unknown.
The Hounds finished last season 0-9 – the first season without a win in Doherty’s six years as head coach. In his seventh year, Doherty hopes to build on some momentum that popped up in the latter half of 2024.
The Hounds are arguably as inexperienced as they’ve been in Doherty’s tenure, but have good numbers to start the season with 63 on the opening roster.
They’ve also undergone some changes on the staff. The nucleus of Doherty, Patrick Lamb, and Josh Wykert are in place, but perennial defensive line coach Ryan Smith has gone back to the FM junior high program and is replaced by TJ Schelich.  Ben Rooney, an All-American wideout at receiver in college, joins the sideline, Ross Vance is handling special teams, and Abram Lorence is on staff.
Doherty said he won’t use youth as an excuse, but admits to being relatively inexperienced.
“We’re taking on the mantra, the steak is raw and we can cook it as we want,” he said.
“I don ‘t want to use youth as an excuse. It’s not that we’re young. We are inexperienced and we have to gain that experience. We only had four seniors to start the season, but we’ve added to that. We’ve had some kids come out for the first time in a long time and we’re excited to have them.”
He said the corp of this year’s team is underclassmen and that’s a positive for the future of the program. It’s also not uncommon across the state.
“There are kids now across the state that are freshmen playing 5A football. So, if you’re ready, you’re ready.”
The Hounds play in 3A again this year in District 4 with Keokuk, Fairfield, Mt. Pleasant, Solon, and Washington. Three of the four non-district games are close to home at Burlington, West Burlington, and Central Lee. The Hounds travel to powerhouse Mt. Vernon to wrap up non-district play on Sept. 19. They open the season Aug. 29 at Burlington and then play at home against the Falcons and then the Hawks.
After Mt. Vernon, the Hounds travel to Keokuk, then host Mt. Pleasant, host Fairfield, travel to Washington and then host Solon in the regular season finale.
Doherty said the lack of Friday night playing time is creating good position battles.
“Good programs have competition and they’re pushing each other. We don’t want kids to take back seats. You think about kids like Landes Williams. He didn’t wait, he pushed that starting position the whole time and we were playing good football then. When you have competition on the team, it’s a great thing,” he said.

“Last year we didn’t have that and we saw some complacency. I hope that our culture has learned that’s not how we operate.”
The summer workouts have been “great” and Doherty said he hopes that translates onto the field. While understanding it’s hard to replace the sheer number of seniors lost last season, there is a core group of underclassmen who understand the game at a granular level.
“We have a decent group that had a great summer. Hopefully that translates onto the field. Obviously replacing a Marcus Guzman is a tough task, but Stef (Stefan Berlett) is extremely cerebral. So far he’s made great decisions with the football and he’s a gamer, and the thing I like about him is he’s a multi-sport athlete.”
Doherty also pointed to senior Ahkiel Wilkerson, and juniors Cal Hennings and Nolan Lamb as solid anchors on the line.
“Ahkiel has grown a lot. He’s put on some muscle and he looks good, but it’s his mental maturity we’re excited about, along with Kal. Kal is only a junior and we forget that because he’s so big. He’s got a great personality, too. He’s the kid you want walking the halls at FMHS because he’s such a great guy. He’s become a leader and that is so needed,” Doherty said.
“Nolan has some Friday experience on the o-line and he’s playing at center right now. He’s doing a good job. Will Scanlan has come back out for football and he’s looking really, really good. It’s not that we have a ton of depth, but we have some options there.”
Markus Holbert comes into the season at 6’2 235 and will help fill gaps on the lines. Wilkerson is 5’10 230 and Hannings is 6’1 210 lbs.
Doherty said he doesn’t entirely want to forget about last season’s performance.
“Not that you ever want to flush everything from last year. I’m the No. 1 guilty guy. I honestly thought our culture was where it needed to be and then we got into the season and we found out we were behind. We didn’t start playing good football until the end of the year,” he said.
“You hope that you’re smarter than you were last year. You hope you’re reflecting on the staples of Bloodhound performance. Not to be negative, but it’s not like on the boys' side we’re achieving high at anything right now . We have to focus on player development. I don’t care if it’s baseball, football, basketball. Athletes have to develop. Four years ago, we had kids on that train and now you look and we’ve kind of gotten off of it.”
The only underclassman to get any snaps in the backfield last year was Moses Thacher who had flashes as a freshman and has some speed, averaging 6.2 yards per carry on 23 attempts. He also caught four balls.
At wide outs, the Hounds had Connor Horn last season as a sophomore. Horn had a nice 16.7 per catch average for 100 yards. But his six receptions give the Hounds just 10 from last season’s coming back this year. The Hounds could look to a Hunter Smrt, who had a nice track season this spring, and possibly some other freshmen and sophomores with speed to open up the offense, depending on who Berlett could build relationships with.
The defense will feature Marshall Heitmann on the line. Heitman was seventh on the team in tackles last year with 32.5, 16 of those were solo and three were behind the line of scrimmage.