Great Falls returns a lot in 2021, including 1 guy who’s given team ‘a sense of hope’

DeMarcus Simons isn’t new to football. Or locker room chatter. Or kids saying kid-things. But there was one moment last season, one interaction when he was giving one of his players direction at practice, that nonetheless made him flinch.

“Last year, a kid said to me, ‘Coach, you’re not going to be here anyway,’” the second-year Great Falls head coach recounted after a preseason scrimmage with Buford earlier this month. He then crinkled his forehead. “And I was like, ‘What?’”

Great Falls, a 1A program in a rural, 2,000-person Great Falls town in a county that didn’t grow according to the latest US Census, hasn’t had a winning football season in a decade. In the past seven years, specifically, the program has hired five coaches, and two of them left after only one season.

Delicacies like inter-season accountability — or momentum, or cohesion, or trust — have grown rare in Great Falls.

So to his players, Simons is doing something special just by showing up.

“He’s the one who stuck with us,” said senior lineman Ubi Santos, the team-acclaimed hardest hitter and leader on the offensive line. Simons is the first coach he and his senior teammates have had for more than one year. “It’s given us a sense of hope. Half of these guys wouldn’t be out here if we didn’t have the same coach. Including me, man.”

The sense of hope has seemed to spill over into all units, affecting all 35 of the school’s players (the most the Red Devils have had in years).

“Having the same coaches, they know our strengths, they know us,” Santos told The Herald. “We all have gotten to know each other now. We have heart, and everybody wants to be here.”

Here’s a close look at the Great Falls football team in 2021.

Great Falls football leaders

Big guys: Great Falls must have, pound for pound, the largest offensive and defensive lines in South Carolina.

Santos, who plays both sides of the ball, is 6-foot-3, 250 pounds. But it’s not just him: There’s junior Landon Knight (6-3, 240). There’s sophomore Javeion Hill (6-5, 305), who Santos has “taken under his wing,” per Simons. There’s junior Isaiah Schenpf (6-foot-4, 230) and at least five others listed as linemen on the Red Devils’ roster.

Small(er) guys: The big guys are tasked with protecting a few skill position returners who are poised for big years.

Among those guys: Wideout and running back seniors Xavien “Foxx” Moore and Zay Brown, each of whom broke free and scored a touchdown at a recent scrimmage against Buford. (Open-field speed will be a strength of the Red Devils, Simons said.) Will Manning, a 6-foot-7 tight end, could prove helpful in the passing game, too.

The quarterback position is still in development, with both Jordan Holmes (junior, 6-foot, 165 pounds) and Jacob Bair (sophomore, 6-foot-1, 170) having split reps throughout the summer. But their collective progress is encouraging, Simons said.

Vulnerability? Schedule. (The good news, at the moment, is that Great Falls will play a few games before its region slate begins so it can learn and grow and develop. Plus, the Devils only need a top-3 finish in the region to sneak into the playoffs, unlike last year’s COVID-condensed postseason field. The bad news? Region 2-1A is really good: Lamar is always a 1A power. Archrival Lewisville is primed for a good year. And McBee is good, too — it took a stunning and powerful defensive effort for Great Falls to defeat McBee, 8-6, last year.)

Strength? Numbers.

“We started out seasons with 28 players and ended up with 11 at the end of the year. I mean, that’s what happened my freshman and sophomore years,” Santos said. He then pointed back to the field, where he and the linemen group did a few sprints after that aforementioned scrimmage with Buford and before going to the school to eat dinner together. “That little running that we just did? Half of the team would’ve quit then.”

But it’s a different year. A new hope has arrived.

In part because of a coach who didn’t think of leaving.

Red Devils at a glance

Head coach: DeMarcus Simons. (Simons, in his first head coaching job, is entering his second season at Great Falls. He played football at Ridge View High School in Columbia and then played for Benedict College before beginning his coaching career as an assistant at Keenan. He is the fifth head coach for the Red Devils in the last seven years.)

Last year: 3-5 (1-3 Region 2-1A). Missed playoffs.

Last five years: 12-38. (Went winless in 2016 and in 2017. The program is 12-18 the last three years.)

Base defense: 3-4.

Offensive philosophy: Balanced.

Key departures: Scott Blackmon (DE/OLB); KJ Abrams (DT); Tommy Seagle (QB); Caleb Funderburk (QB/ATH).

Great Falls football schedule

Check The Herald’s website for a comprehensive look at all the football schedules for high schools in York, Chester and Lancaster counties.

Aug. 20 at Whitmire

Aug. 27 Eau Claire

Sept. 3 at Timmonsville

Sept. 10 at East Clarendon

Sept. 17 Camden Military Academy

Sept. 24 Chesterfield

Oct. 1 at Lamar

Oct. 8 CA Johnson

Oct. 15 Lewisville

Oct. 22 at McBee

Oct. 29 BYE

This story was originally published August 14, 2021 at 8:00 AM.

Alex Zietlow

The Herald

Alex Zietlow writes about sports and the ways in which they intersect with life in York, Chester and Lancaster counties for The Herald, where he has been an editor and reporter since August 2019. Zietlow has won nine S.C. Press Association awards in his career, including First Place finishes in Feature Writing, Sports Enterprise Writing and Education Beat Reporting. He also received two Top-10 awards in the 2021 APSE writing contest and was nominated for the 2022 U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s Rising Star award for his coverage of the Winthrop men’s basketball team.