Mills football primed for a return this fall

That, apparently, is a one-off as Mills’ third-year head coach Kevin Thorson said the plan is to be back on the field for the 2021 fall season. But like the last several seasons, Thorson is still waiting on the roster to grow once school starts.

“We will see,” Thorson said. “During the summer, we had plenty (of players showing up for workouts).”

Thorson said he has a varsity roster around 15 or 16 right now, with 20 more slated for the junior varsity squad.

Despite the struggle to recruit players, Mills has always managed to take the field and if the 2020 season had been played during its regular fall schedule, the Vikings would have been a go.

“Last summer, we had plenty (of players),” Thorson said. “Once fall came, we had less. When winter came, we had even less. By the time spring came around, we were down to 8 to 10.”

Instead, the Vikings got permission to field a JV-only squad, which managed to play three games in the spring of 2021. If nothing else, it allowed a number of players to gain valuable experience as beginning football players.

But whatever progress was made with the inexperienced players was lost when those kids who would have played varsity, instead sat out the season instead of playing at the JV level. Thorson said he started three sophomores on the offensive side during the Vikings’ Lake Division co-championship in 2019. All three sat out last season, depriving them of much-needed snaps. Thorson said he has heard that all three will return to the team for their senior year, but he hasn’t seen them at workouts all summer.

“The guys (who played varsity) in 2019, didn’t want to play JV,” Thorson said.

Thorson was especially disappointed because he felt with the addition of a number of skill players, the Vikings were poised for more success in 2020.

“We were better than the year before (2019),” Thorson said. “We were loaded at the skills positions. We had three or four kids who didn’t play [in 2019]. We had five receivers in the summer. We were playing 7-on-7, killing people.

“(2020) would have been fun.”

Which leads to another puzzling question: given the success of the team in 2019 — going 4-1 in Lake Division play, 8-3 overall and the Vikings appearing in the Central Coast Section playoffs for the first time in 12 years — why weren’t more student-athletes excited to play for a winning team?

“You win league, you have a decent season. So why don’t we have 50 kids out here?” Thorson said.

Thorson can play the coulda, woulda, shoulda game all day long, but at the end, he can only play with those who have committed to the team. He’ll hope another dozen or so players show up once school starts, he’ll adjust his playbook accordingly and get to work.

“Hopefully, all the kids who played [in the spring] are better,” Thorson said. “(But) we go with what we have. … It’s all you can do.”