Published: August 29, 2006 12:06 pm            

Turner looking to guide POJO into playoffs

Logan Turner spent the first three years of his high school career in East Texas as the quarterback at Sulphur Springs High School, but this season, he will be donning the black and orange of the Springtown Porcupines.

Logan Turner, along with his father and the head coach of the Porcupines, Brad Turner, moved to Springtown following the end of the 2005 season in which Logan passed for 2,375 yards and rushed for 720 yards. He and his father have quickly been getting acquainted with the players and the town in hopes of building on their success last season and making a prolonged run into the playoffs.

“It’s been fun,” Logan said of the move. “When I first got here, I was a little nervous just as anybody would be, but everybody was so welcoming and so nice that they just made me feel at home. Now, I feel like have been here for more than eight months. It’s been good and I love these guys here and I am looking forward to next season.”

Logan said he is looking forward to the 2006 season because he knows he is surrounded by a group of teammates that will lay it all on the line week in and week out.

“I think our goal this year is to get out there and play hard and show everybody that, I mean, even though we are the smallest team in our district and we don’t have the best athletes in the world, we’re going to get after you,” Logan said. “We’re going to play hard.

“I know Springtown has been like that all the years that I have heard about them. I know last year, they had a lot of hard-nosed players and I think this year, we’ll try to play the same way they did and we hope to get as far as they did last year. I know they got beat in the second round, so if we can, we’ll go farther than that.”

While Logan, who verbally committed to Southern Methodist University over the summer, will be looked at as the leader on the Porcupine offense, he said the five guys on the line actually handle most of the responsibility. That responsibility and the play of the offensive line will determine the success of the Springtown offensive attack.

“They have the toughest job on the field,” Logan said of the offensive line. “People think offensive line, you block this guy and you block this guy, but in our offense, it’s not that way at all. Those guys have done a good job taking in everything and Coach (John) Albritton, our offensive coordinator, does a good job with those guys and they work hard every day in practice. They are out there early and they stay late. They are always up here watching film and just trying to get better.

“They’ve got a lot of reads and a lot of calls to make and they do a great job at it. They have taken in a lot of information in the little amount of time they have been given.”

Logan said he and his father came to Springtown knowing that the Porcupines were not known as a throwing team so they had to find receivers. He said that search has been fruitful and should result in some excitement for Springtown fans.

“When we came here, I knew Springtown didn’t throw it a whole lot and they for sure didn’t throw it as much as we did over at Sulphur (Springs), so finding guys that could make plays and had hands and could learn all the routes and stuff that we do was hard,” Logan said. “I think we found quite a few guys that can make plays and get the job done.”

Logan said that the offense is constructed in such a way that there are multiple plays that can be used to help them create a big play opportunity or pick up a first down in a crunch. He said that versatility is what makes playing the quarterback position so fun.

“There are quite a few plays that we can run that I think are unstoppable,” Logan said. “Our zone-read, when we are just reading the defensive end and if he comes down, I pull it and run with it just like Vince Young does in their [University of Texas] offense. To me, there is really no way to stop that. Whatever he does, he’s wrong.

“We have a lot of plays that put defensive players in situations like that and that’s why I love this offense so much.”

While Logan and his offensive teammates are on the field having fun he hopes they do one more thing — score points.

“Our goal is just to put points on the board and keep our defense off the field as much as we can,” Logan said. “We want to give our team enough points on the board to not put as much pressure on the defense to make plays. I know they are going to make plays, but to score as many points as possible and to put ourselves in the best position to win is the goal.”

        

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