2023 Wyoming High School Football Preview: Douglas High School

DOUGLAS, Wyo. (Wyoming News Now) - The football season is just around the corner, and this time we’ll take a look at Douglas where the Bearcats are coming off of a semi final loss to the team that took home the state championship in 3A last year.

Their offense last year was one of the most explosive in 3A last fall, where they finished third in total offense with 385 yards per game which was also 7th in the state.

Although they are losing one of their biggest weapons in Jackson Hughes after he graduated, they are still returning a good amount of athletes, and one of those include returning senior quarterback Trey Rinn.

Even losing one of his big targets from last year, Rinn leaves no doubt that this years team will do the same as they always have. He said, “I feel like we’re returning a lot of people that are not necessarily looked at this year, and they’ll do just as good as Jackson, and we have very high expectations for everyone, and we’re hoping that everyone meets those.”

Trey is the only returning 3A quarterback who threw for more than 1700 passing yards (along with 23 passing touch downs) from last year, and a lot of his success comes with being able to extend plays for as long as he can.

Head Coach Jay Rhoades is looking forward to see how Rinn takes off this year, as he’s already gained nearly a full year of games from last season.

“Just the year of experience and all of that. You know, the game will just keep getting a little bit slower for him, as he gets more experience. So he’s going to notice a big difference you know, first game this year than the first game last year, or even the first game he started last year,” said Rhoades.

After losing in the semi’s last year, the players have had that on their mind since then and have been putting in the work during the off season to build more chemistry.

Trey believes in this group this year, saying, “We’ve been playing together for a long time. We’ve been coming out here over the summer, just ourselves, getting out throwing, and we’ve been doing, we’ve created a bond really quickly already.”

Douglas doesn’t only have the skill positions looking strong this season, as they are also returning a couple of strong linemen from the year prior, most notably 3A conference East lineman of the year Teagan Seeds. Seeds was very strong on both sides of the ball, as he ended the year with almost 60 tackles, becoming one of the Bearcats biggest assets on defense.

With the amount of competition in 3A this year looking very close, Coach Rhoades knows it’ll take a lot of hard work to get to that state championship. Rhoades said, “You know, we know it’s going to be a tough road this year. We got a lot of good teams in 3A, a lot of great coaches. So it’s going to be a job week in and week out to find success, but we’ll find a way to get it done.”

The Bearcats will play their first game against Jackson on September 1st.

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