McInnis ready to help Windham football reach next level

WINDHAM – When the 2013 season began for the Windham High School football team, head coach Bill Raycraft was expecting the Jaguars to go through a bit of a rebuilding year.

Part of Raycraft’s reason for thinking that was the question mark he had at quarterback. The Jaguars lost Joe Lorenz, a three-year starter, to graduation, and the quarterback set to replace Lorenz hadn’t received many reps in practice, nevermind a varsity game.

But it didn’t take long for Brendan McInnis to show Raycraft he was perfectly capable of handling the job.

“It was early on, I think in the Hanover game,” Raycraft said. “We went up there, knowing it’s going to be his first start on a Friday night in hostile territory. Getting up to that game, he was kind of quiet and I think he was trying to feel things out. On the field, he stepped up and made some key plays when we needed it and got us the victory. At that point, I think you saw everybody else kind of rally around him, too.”

McInnis threw for 140 yards and a touchdown in a 28-7 victory for the Jaguars, starting off a year that would turn out to be a lot better than just a rebuilding year.

“We ended up going 8-1, so that was a pretty good rebuilding year,” Raycraft said. “This year, now we’re looking at what did we do well, what can we expand on, what gave us trouble, and with Brendan, we were able to work on that throughout the summer.”

Getting his teammates to work during the offseason wasn’t too hard, especially when it came to the other seniors in the program.

“We’re kind of realizing its our last year playing together and we’ve been playing together with this group since fourth grade,” McInnis said. “We’re taking it one day at a time, but ultimately knowing where we want to end up at the end of the year.”

The Jaguars thought they were headed there a year ago, when they finished first in Division II’s South Conference and hosted Trinity in the conference championship. But the Pioneers shocked Windham by rolling to a 36-0 win.

“I didn’t even watch the film until maybe February,” McInnis said. “We tried to put it out of our heads and nobody really talked about it until early this spring. We knew what happened. We were young and all the credit to (Trinity), they played a near perfect game. We know that we left a lot on the field. We’ve put it behind us and it’s not talked about.”

McInnis began playing football for the Pelham-Windham Razorbacks when he was in fourth grade, which was also when he started playing quarterback. Going into his junior year, McInnis might have been the only one who knew he was fully capable of successfully taking over the quarterback spot, and when he did, the Jaguars offense was able to grow together.

“I think last year, not just myself, but the whole offense, we were very inexperienced working together chemistry-wise,” he said. “Myself and the receivers, the chemistry has skyrocketed, just knowing where they’re going to be and when they’re supposed to. I trust that they will be there and it allows us to do things to be more dynamic.”

The work McInnis put into his own conditioning has allowed Raycraft to tweak some of the offense to allow his quarterback to take full advantage of his athleticism.

“He dropped his 40(-yard dash) down to a 4.59 (seconds), which for a kid his size, it’s unbelievable,” Raycraft said. “He’s put in a tremendous amount of work, and it’s not just in the weight room and working on his agility. It’s pulling out the receivers and saying ‘hey we’re meeting this day at 3.’ He makes the other guys work hard, too, which makes him better and which makes them better.”

Windham is scheduled to open the season on Sept. 6 at 7 p.m. at Hollis Brookline.