New Lely Coach Wins Debut

In a game that offered a little bit of everything—fumbles, interceptions, long touchdown runs, and passes- Lely emerged victorious in coach Daniel Nieboer’s Florida football debut, beating Palmetto Ridge, 41-36, in the team’s Spring Game on the Bears’ home turf Tuesday night, May 19.

Nieboer, who has coached in Ohio and Texas, was also making his head coaching debut after several stops as a coordinator at high-profile programs. Nieboer was chosen as Lely’s new head coach because of his reputation as a disciplinarian, but he showed he can put points on the board, too.

The Trojans fired former head coach Ben Hammer after three successful seasons, including district championships the past two years and regional semifinal appearances. Most of the firepower from last year’s point-a-minute offense is no longer on the roster, but there seems to be talent on the roster to take their place.

After falling behind 12-0 early on big plays by Palmetto Ridge, Lely struck back with some big plays of their own. The biggest surprise, perhaps, was the insertion of tight end Cannon Boyd into the starting quarterback position. After throwing a pick-six on his first passing attempt, Boyd settled in and looked promising, particularly when making plays with his feet. Lely’s all-star quarterback from last season, sophomore Brady Quinn, transferred to the East Coast to continue his high school career. Lely also lost Nino Joseph, the school’s all-time leading rusher with over 4,000 yards, who transferred to St. John Neumann. Freshman Billy Bornelus proved he’s quite capable of making big plays at the varsity level. Additionally, defensive back Trevon Cherelus showed offensive firepower, scoring four times on some highlight film quality plays. And perhaps the biggest name returning from last year’s squad, receiver Brandon Baptiste, showed he’s also right at home in the defensive backfield, intercepting a pass to end a possible game-winning drive and seal the Trojans’ win in the waning moments of the game.

But first things first: Nieboer’s first win in his first game as a head coach in a state where he’s never coached.

"I think it's top-notch football in Florida,” Nieboer said. "I mean, you look throughout the country, you think of Texas, Florida, California, and then those colder states up there, Ohio and Pennsylvania. But I think this came as advertised as a great Florida program. Coaches are clearly building something very, very positive over here. Those kids are well coached. They know the system well, and they trust their coaches to do what they ask them to do. So I thought it was really good.”

For the record, Palmetto Ridge is not the team that went undefeated and broke Naples High’s long in-county win streak in 2020. They’ve struggled since being placed on probation after that season and were winless last season.

Nieboer doesn’t tiptoe around the subject of discipline. He does not mince words with his players in regard to how he expects them to behave. He has a no-swearing policy that comes with penalties for those who break the rules—including his coaches.

"We wanted to implement the discipline that we've been trying to implement from day one,” he said, "and that's what we want to identify ourselves as, as a program that’s going to be disciplined, we're going to pay attention to detail, and we're going to have a sense of urgency. Now that's easy when it's a cool 70 degrees, but when it's sweaty, when it's 100 percent humidity, and there's another guy across the line from you that's hitting you in the mouth, oh man, do I really want to do that? But we've made progress in that. We believe that you are what you repeatedly do. So we try to do those things on a daily basis. We try to repeat the same things over and over and over. So they hear it and it's in their psyche, and they know that, ‘Hey, coach is not going to let up on this, we are going to be a disciplined team.' And the guys that are going to be successful, are going to be successful because they are disciplined in our system, and those will be the guys who play for us. For us, the game of football is a tool for us to build young men into champions. Winning the game is one of our goals. But it's not the top goal. We want to build these young men into guys that are going to carry on to the university, workforce, military, to be great husbands and fathers, and be people that we can count on. And I think that we have some guys that have stepped forward. I was just telling our team that we have some young guys who don't realize that they're not supposed to make plays. They just come out and they've been listening and they are executing the things that we as coaches have been preaching to them.”

Boyd, for instance, was buried on the depth chart last season, recording only two carries for one yard. Against Palmetto Ridge, he completed 10-20 passes for 152 yards and three touchdowns. He also showed plenty of moxie as a runner, picking up 90 yards on 10 carries.

"We toyed with him the first week because I said, ‘Is there anybody else that plays quarterback?’” Nieboer said. "And he said that he did. He hadn't played for a long time, but I think that's what he played when he was in Colorado before he moved here. So we just kind of asked that a little bit and then moved on. Then we came back and we were just talking over the weekend after we had kind of an intrasquad scrimmage. And I said, ‘Do we have anybody else? Man, I think we should try Cannon.' And so we gave him a shot. And Coach Kit Fowler has come on and is working with the quarterbacks.”

Fowler, Lely’s baseball coach, played quarterback for the Trojans in his high school days from 2009-2012.

"It's going really, really well with Fowler,” Nieboer said. "Cannon is competitive and he understands our offense, our route combinations, that kind of thing. He knows what's going to be open and where they're going to be. And he knows when it's time for him to go, to take off and run. He's fast enough and he's strong enough to be able to get those extra yards when he lowers his shoulder.”

Though Cherelus was a defensive mainstay last season, he didn’t register any offensive stats. He made a believer out of everyone against Palmetto Ridge, making big play after big play.

“Early on, we saw Trevon Cherelus,” Nieboer said. "He had four touchdowns. You know what I mean? So that's the idea of stress, the defense. Make them defend 53 and a third yards (the width of the football field).

"Our philosophy is basically to create explosive plays as much as we can. And we think that the best way to do that is to put the ball in explosive athletes' hands in space. Make an equal or lesser athlete try to tackle them. Cannon has shown the ability the last two weeks in camp of being able to kind of scan the field and know when it's time to abort and know when I can just move my feet a little bit and throw that guy open. So I think we want to continue to build on that. That's not to say that Luke Trebilcock, who's been working at the quarterback position for several weeks as well, won't continue to get reps at that place. He's super intelligent. He has the speed to escape. We're going to continue to develop him as well."

Bornelus looked like a veteran running back against Palmetto Ridge. An early 37-yard dash through the Bears defense was an early sign of things to come. Cherelus and Bornelus combined for 229 yards from scrimmage.

“He’s a bright spot,” Nieboer said. "I think running back Billy Bornelus is someone that's going to develop really well. He will only be a sophomore. He is going to be a pillar in our program for the next three years. He will do whatever we ask him to do. He's a great student. He's a great citizen in our school campus. I mean, he's going to be someone that people will remember. He had several great runs. Billy's super coachable. He wants to learn. He's hungry. ‘Coach, please tell me what can I do, coach. How can I get better?’ He will be a great one.”

On one long run, a Palmetto Ridge defender was able to punch the ball out of Bornelus’ grip.

"I told him it's not the guy you see,” Nieboer said, “it's the guy that you don't see. That's what we'll say over and over and over so that they have it in the back of their mind. 'All right, I think that I'm in open field, but I can't see behind my head. So let's get that ball up here high and tight. Fist to chin.' We have this motto in our program that we say the ball is the lifeblood of the program. It's the hopes and dreams of the program, and we must possess it and protect it. It wasn't the defender that was going to tackle him; it was the guy that came out from behind and punched it out. And so we work a ball security drill. We talk about five points of contact: fingers, palm, forearm, biceps, pec. And then we say fist to chin. And then we add a sixth point when we're in traffic."

Big things are expected from Baptiste in his receiver position, where he was Lely’s third-leading receiver with 24 catches for 388 yards and 5 TDs last season. He averaged 16.2 yards per catch as a junior.

“When you look at playmakers like number six, Brandon Baptiste,” Nieboer said, "he's somebody that we have to get the ball in his hands.”

Defensively, standouts included returning starter Maksim Noel, who picked off two passes in the scrimmage. Izayah David, Iven Joseph, Richard Joseph, Ubers Liberus, Brody Thein, Aaron Romo, Elijah Heard, and Lobachevsky St. Louis all made plays for a defense that forced several fumbles and interceptions.

Nieboer had to be happy that his team was able to build a 41-18 lead before putting in his backups at the beginning of the third quarter. The starters returned in the fourth quarter to preserve the win. At the end of the day, it was just a spring game for the Trojans. But Nieboer was happy to get the win nonetheless.

“Any time we line up and we're in a competition, we want to win,” Nieboer said. "But more than anything, it's how we perform. I said to our guys last night, especially to our coaches, whether we win or we lose, we want to do it with class and character. And that was an issue for us tonight. I think that we had some hiccups there where we didn’t maintain the class and character the way that we will in our program. So, are we glad with the win? Absolutely. But it was also important that third quarter to get our program kids in there and get them live reps, regardless of who they're playing against, so that they know that they're valued as well."