For the first and only time in 2020, the Kentucky Wesleyan Panthers were able to play under the lights of Steele Stadium as the annual Purple-White Game was held Sunday in front of players’ families.
KWC coach Craig Yeast said Sunday was a special feeling.
“First of all, I’m happy for all of our young men,” he said. “This has been a tough 2020 for them, not having an opportunity to play in the fall. I’m just happy for them to come out and have an opportunity to play in a game-like atmosphere with all their moms, dads, family and friends out here. This was a good night, little bit under the lights so I thought it was fun, very happy for them and our coaching staff.”
Since COVID shutdown the Panther program last spring, Yeast said they’ve been trying to continuing improving and as KWC athletic director Rob Mallory said a couple of months ago, a coaches job doesn’t job just because games are canceled.
“We’ve just been taking our time and trying to get our guys in the weight room the best we can,” he said. “Trying to get out on the field as much as we can. We started out on pods of eight then we graduated to half the team then we graduated to the full team. It’s worked out well. Our administration has done a phenomenal job with Dr. (Thomas) Mitzel, our president, and Rob Mallory, as our athletic director, of making sure we’re on the same page and that our young men and women have a meaningful experience here in the fall even though we can’t have games.”
Yeast added the personnel at KWC has been vital when it comes to COVID protocols.
“The beauty is I have a phenomenal staff,” he said. “I don’t have to worry about doing everything. I tell them what I want done, they generally get it done. That makes it easy for me. I’m just in a position where I’m surrounded by great people and I just have the title of head coach but all my coaches, they do all the work.”
White won the game 28-20, although Yeast may have improved on team’s score late in the game.
Yeast said Sunday wasn’t about one team earning a victory.
“You saw some guys make plays and a lot of excitement, that’s what we want. We have a family atmosphere around here and we stress that and you got a chance to see a little bit of that tonight.”
The Panthers finished 1-10 last season with their lone win coming in the season finale.
Yeast said they’ve been working a lot and Sunday was just the start of things to come.
“We’ll do that in the spring,” he said. “This was a good springboard for us to just come out and get better,” he said. “We’ve had 36 days, we’ve had 15 practices. I thought those went well. We’ve learned a lot, we’ve got better. We got some young men that we’re really, really excited about that made some plays today. We’re looking forward to seeing more young men make plays in the future and going into the spring, hopefully when we play Hillsdale on March 20, we’ll be ready to play.”
When it comes to what his team does well, Yeast goes to a side of the football that he didn’t play during his days at Kentucky.
“I’ve always felt good about our defense because we’ve got so much experience and so much athleticism,” he said. “I think our secondary is arguably one of the best secondaries in the country with the amount of athletes and the range of athletes we have in that group.
“We’re led on defense by Jalen Humphrey, he’s arguably the best football player in our conference.”
The Panthers also have several young players on the offensive end that excite Yeast going into the season.
“I’m really excited about Wiley Cain and some of the new wide receivers,” he said. “Local young man, Imonte Owsley. You saw Josh Moore make some plays and you saw Peyton Peters from Apollo High School, he had two touchdowns tonight. Very, very happy to see that from Peyton. It’s been kind of a tough road for him but he’s gotten significantly better so it’s always good to see the local young men do better.”
Peters, a junior for the Panthers, had the first two touchdowns for his team Sunday night.
He had a simple mindset going into the season.
“Build off of last year is what I was mainly trying to do,” he said. “Be a better route runner, be a better blocker and an overall better player.”
While COVID threw a wrench into most things, Peters said he’s used it to find some positives.
“It’s been different going off of our usual schedule and not knowing what to expect or when we’re going to play,” he said. “For me, it was actually an opportunity for me to get closer to some younger guys that were in my pod. I had some young guys on my team and I was able to lead them and help them out.”
It’s been a long time since Peters was able to play in front of his friends and family and he said Sunday was a sweet moment.
“It was great to show what we have building right now,” he said. “Coming from last season to this season, I feel like we’ve had way more improvement going into this season than we did last season. It’s a better opportunity for us because we’re getting guys in early and not having to rush them through the fall camp to get them ready for a fall season.”
Peters had two touchdowns at Steele Stadium during his senior season at Apollo and when asked which touchdowns mean more to him, he didn’t hesitate.
“However you get them, however they come, they’re always exciting,” he said.
The Panthers now look to close out the last few weeks until they head home from break as Yeast is ready to start the next semester and get back to work.
“We’ve got weights for a couple weeks then all of our young men and women are going to go home for break then we’ll get back in the second semester,” he said. “When we get them back, we’ll start back up with weights until we can get on the field Feb. 1. Until then, we’re just going to work on strength and conditioning.”
