Photo: Danville captains Olyjawan Ford (34), Jacobie Harris (52), Nolan Spann (18) and Trevon Sandifer (74) head to midfield with coach Clay Clevenger for the pregame captains' meeting prior to their season opener Saturday at Campbellsville University. The Admirals wore Campbellsville junior varsity jerseys for their first game under Clevenger.

 

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It was the kind of thing that can make coaches crazy, and the kind of thing Clay Clevenger surely did not need before his first game as coach at Danville.

 

Coaches try to make sure every detail is covered before their teams take the field so they can focus on the task at hand, and Clevenger is probably as detail-oriented as the next coach. But when he sent the Admirals onto the field at Campbellsville University on Saturday night for their season opener, only to find that the Admirals’ opponents were wearing the same color jerseys, he might have thought it was a bad sign.

 

But if that’s the worst thing that happens to Clevenger and his team this season, it should be a pretty good year at Danville.

Exactly what kind of year it is going to be has been the subject of much discussion in Danville since Clevenger was hired in February to replace Sam Harp, who led the Admirals for 25 years to take the head coaching job at Lebanon (Tenn.)

 

That’s no knock on Clevenger, a 1996 Danville graduate who returned home with solid credentials after going 45-27 in six years at Henderson County following stints as an assistant coach at Lincoln County and the University of the Cumberlands. Rather, it was a question about where the program is headed and whether the Admirals could return to a time when they regularly competed for championships.

 

It’s too early to write a definitive answer, but one game into the Clevenger era, it’s clear he’s trying to take the program in only one direction: forward.

 

“Do you want to go back, or do you want to keep moving forward?” Clevenger asked the Admirals in the moments after they defeated Franklin-Simpson 25-7.

 

Of course, you know how the players responded. After months of early-morning workouts and fierce practices and perhaps wondering more than once if their new coach had lost his mind, their efforts were rewarded with a season-opening win.

 

Clevenger said his final instructions to his players in his pregame speech were to encourage them to have fun.

 

“They don’t get these nights back. Take advantage of them, play with a sense of heart and urgency and have fun,” he said.

 

It was certainly a fun night for the Admirals and for Clevenger, who was in the fifth grade when Harp’s first Danville team lost its first three games to Bryan Station, St. Xavier and Lincoln in 1988. And if the Admirals had lost Saturday, there was a very real possibility that could happen again, with games against Mercer County and Boyle County following Franklin-Simpson on the schedule.

 

The Admirals weren’t without mistakes in their opener. There were 11 penalties, two blocked kicks and a few times in which their defense had trouble getting off the field on third down.

 

But they executed long touchdown drives in the second and third quarters and stopped one by Franklin-Simpson in the final minute of the first half as they built a 13-0 lead. They kept the Wildcats out of the end zone until the fourth quarter, then forced two turnovers that allowed them to put the game on ice.

 

Freshman Zack Dampier showed poise in his first start at quarterback, a balanced running game didn’t break any big plays but did its job, and the line play that had been perhaps the team’s biggest question mark proved adequate to the task.

 

And Danville got the job done wearing somebody else’s jerseys. Officials at Campbellsville worked quickly to fix the mix-up, as they gathered jerseys from the school’s junior varsity team that the Admirals changed into minutes before kickoff.

 

The white-and-maroon jerseys didn’t match Danville’s traditional silver helmets and pants, but that was forgotten once the action started. Clothes don’t make the man in football, after all, and no one grades the winners on style points.

Clevenger was a tremendous hire for Danville. I am glad he got the win in his first game back and I wish him continued success at Danville.