Summer Notes: Merrimack High School Football

If there was a way for the Merrimack High School football team to play in a seven-man league this season, coach Kip Jackson would feel pretty confident about the Tomahawks chances.

But alas, the NHIAA doesn’t do seven-man football, and the 7-on-7 competitions ended with the start of practice last week.

Going into this season, Jackson knows he’s got a boatload of skill players returning, but it’s along the offensive line where the biggest question marks reside.

“I lay awake thinking about it,” the coach said. “If we could just do 7-on-7 competitions all the time, we’d be pretty good. We’d be two-deep and we’d be awesome. But we need to line those guys up front. We have two returning starters, both of whom are very good players, but we need to build some depth in that area.”

Depth isn’t the only thing Merrimack is trying to build. The coaches tried to put an offseason system in place that would help improve team chemistry, something Jackson has been focused on since he took over the program prior to last season.

“We did a lot of things in the offseason to focus on building team chemistry,” he said. “I was smart enough to know that I don’t know everything, so I talked to (Goffstown) coach (Justin) Hufft, I talked with (Nashua South) coach (Scott) Knight, I talked with some other coaches about ways of building team chemistry. We had a couple of programs that I think in the long run will serve us well.”

One thing that Jackson likes about this group is the fact that many of his players are what he calls “old-school athletes,” because a large number play multiple sports.

“I think the fact they work so hard, and the fact they have experience of playing other sports, they have the experience of being in pressure situations, it’s going to help us out in the long run,” he said.