By Joe Scalzo

scalzo@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

In early January, a little more than a month after his team blew a 24-0 lead in a Division V regional final loss to Kirtland, Ursuline High football coach Larry Kempe held a staff meeting to talk about that game, and the 2013 season.

“The first person I blamed was myself,” said Kempe, whose team lost 38-37 after a failed two-point conversion attempt with 8 seconds left. “It wasn’t because we went for two. I don’t disagree with that decision. It was because in the second half, we let things slip away and we got tied up with the officiating.

“We have to go coach football and we didn’t do a great job of that. It started with me and went to the coaches and that’s who I’m blaming.”

Kempe printed up T-shirts with the motto “Finish It” and reminded everyone in the program that making it to Week 13 is two weeks short of the standard.

“It started with Coach [Dan] Reardon,” said Kempe, who replaced Reardon before last season. “We consider ourselves a 15-week football team.”

Thanks to back-to-back-to-back state titles from 2008-10, the Irish have their deepest roster in a decade — 77 players. The bad news is, 56 of those are freshmen or sophomores. While Kempe isn’t shy about playing underclassmen — “Our philosophy is, if you’re a freshman and you can play, you’re going to get some playing time,” he said — Ursuline will rise or fall on its nine seniors.

Offense

Offensively, senior quarterback Chris Durkin (a Michigan State recruit) enters his third year as a starter. After running for more than 700 yards and seven TDs and throwing for close to 900 yards and six TDs, Durkin will again be the focal point of the team’s spread offense.

“The more years that go by, the more mature I get and the more I learn,” said Durkin, who would like to throw 20 times a game this fall. “I’m more able to pick up on things like blitzes, coverages, hot routes, my reads, those kinds of things.”

His main targets will be seniors Tannor Berry and Michael Montalbano, while seniors George Baal, Jordan Davis and Zach Scheetz will open holes up front for a young, but promising, group of running backs.

Defense

Defensively, senior end ShaHaun Williams (11 sacks in 2012) will lead a unit that returns just three starters. Kempe wants to get back to playing the type of fast defense that helped the Irish go unbeaten in 2010.

“Our motto is, ‘If you can’t run, you can’t play on this side of the ball,’” he said.

Special teams

While the Irish will have a lot of newcomers on special teams, they do have one big luxury: senior kicker Vince Yurcho is back for the third year.

Outlook

Ursuline has a nine-game regular season and it’s typically brutal, with games against two defending state champions: Erie Cathedral Prep and Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary. Like always, if the Irish can get to the postseason, they have a chance to win it all. But with no opponents below Division IV, that’s no cinch.

“Over at Ursuline, we have one goal and that’s to win state,” Williams said. “That’s the goal this year.”