Wildcats in pursuit of rebound season, key pieces intact on both lines of scrimmage

CANTON, Mo. — As the calendar flips to August, Tom Sallay and the Culver-Stockton football team hope to turn over a new leaf.

The Wildcats posted just one win in 2023 — their fewest since 2017 not including the 2020 COVID impacted season — and lost their final seven games by an average of 32 points per game.

“Our kids had every chance to jump ship and run away,” said Sallay, who is entering his eighth season as the Wildcats head coach.

Two of those shipmates who stayed aboard — junior center Ryan Yabi and fifth-year senior defensive lineman Kendall Fowler — joined Sallay during the Heart of America Athletic Conference’s virtual media day on Thursday.

An injury limited Yabi to two games in 2023.

“We missed him a lot,” Sallay said. “I threatened him and said he’s not allowed to get hurt again.”

Yabi said this injury was a sort of blessing in disguise.

“I’ve never felt better,” Yabi said. “The injury made me mentally stronger and made me appreciate what I’m doing.”

Having Yabi back at full health is a blessing for the Wildcats, too.

“Having Ryan at center and having him make the calls and set the middle of our offensive line is huge for us,” Sallay said. “I think he’s one of the best in the conference for sure, if not the country. I’ve had some really good ones here, so I know what good looks like. He has the ability to be every bit of the player that those guys were. He should receive all of the accolades.”

On the other side of the ball, Fowler added a 1st Team All-HAAC honor to his resume in 2023. Fowler recorded 4.5 sacks and 37 tackles and forced two fumbles. 

“He finally gets to be the dude,” Sallay said. “We’ve had a lot of really good players here, and everybody kind of has to wait their turn a little bit on defense sometimes. It’s going to be fun for him to be our leader emotionally, ability-wise, on and off the field, raising expectations, all those things he excels at. He’s an awesome guy to have around.”

Fowler said his decision to return for a fifth year stemmed from his experience on the 2021 Wildcats team that went 8-3.

“Those veterans, those fifth-year seniors who came back to help build their program because they wanted to leave it better than how they found it,” Fowler said. “That’s something that really stuck with me. I talked to them all last season, and I just thought this was something I had to do. I want to pay it forward because that’s what they would want me to do. 

Yabi will be snapping the ball to a new quarterback in 2024 with Western Illinois transfer Drake Day expected to get the starting nod. While it takes some time for a transfer to assimilate to a new team, Yabi said he and Day have already hit it off and earned each other’s trust since Day arrived this spring.

“He’s always coming around the offensive line, talking and hanging out with us outside of football,” Yabi said. “I trust him to make a play, and I believe he trusts me to make sure he’s able to make that play.”

Day will have the luxury of handing the ball off to senior running back Demarion Cobb and sophomore tailback Nicholas Jarrett, who Sallay described as a ‘bowling ball.’

“He’s about five-foot-six, but he’s a tank,” Sallay said. “He weighs 205 pounds, and if he’s not the fastest kid on the team, he’s one of the fastest. He’s not one of those little kids who you can grab with one arm and rip down. You try to do that, he’s just going to run through you all day.”

Cobb and Jarrett are part of an overhaul at the Wildcats’ skill positions.

“I think we’ll have a different starter at every skill spot on offense,” Sallay said. “It will be interesting to see how everybody gels.”

These aren’t the only changes the Wildcats and other teams in the HAAC will face in 2024. The conference has partnered with SkyCoach to institute instant replay and a challenge system. Teams will also be permitted to use tablets on the sideline to review game film.

“It’s a pretty awesome thing,” Sallay said. “The biggest thing I think that’s going to help our kids is we get the sideline replay tablets, so the coaches can talk to our kids after every drive. Our kids will be able to really see what happened.”

The Wildcats will get their first chance to use this technology in a game when they face Mount Marty at Ellison Poulton Stadium. The Lancers beat Culver-Stockton 28-23 in Yankton, South Dakota to begin the 2023 season.