<I>Elane Dickenson/Chieftain</I><BR>EHS's head football coach J.D. Nobles gives his team instructions as they work on their strength and conditioning in practice last Thursday evening.

Enterprise high school football coach J.D. Nobles knows the challenges ahead for his Outlaws and that this season’s team should be an interesting one.

The Outlaws suffered through 0-8 season in 2005, spurred by many of the same problems that kept the Outlaws winless in the Wapiti League in 2004.

There were penalties, breakdowns on defense and the lack of a consistent running game.

Consistency is the key for Enterprise this season.

The good news for EHS is that the districts will benefit the most compared to the other schools in the county. The new classification system keeps EHS as a 2A competitor, but the difference this year will be that the Outlaws won’t be one the smallest schools in 2A. With 154 students, the Outlaws are right in the middle, as far as enrollment in the district is concerned.

“I am real excited about the new district,” Nobles said. “It will be great to finally be able to play teams with similar sized school and the same size pool of players to choose from.”

There are a total of five districts and 82 teams throughout the state that will participate in the 2A classification system. Enterprise’s district opponents will include Irrigon (230 students), Weston-McEwen (216), Union (157), Stanfield (146), Heppner (142), Elgin (131) and Pilot Rock (130).

Enterprise’s new district will be a combination of three teams out of the the old Wapiti League – Enterprise, Elgin and Union – as well as six teams from the old Columbia Basin Conference: Weston-McEwen, Stanfield, Heppner, Pilot Rock and Irrigon.

EHS, which was blanked in the win column last season, returns a core group of players off that team and returns with a renewed sense of confidence – which Enterprise doesn’t want them to forget.

Nobles, who enters into his second season at the helm, says he plans on keeping many of the same offensive schemes as last season, plus add a few to arsenal.

“The only thing that we are basically changing is we took the offense and added a few new elements to what it was last season,” Nobles said. “We added a lot of extra stuff off that we would benefit the players and our offense will be based on what we have to work with.”

Nobles believes it will help his team to grow even more this season because they don’t have to start anew and can try to fix the mistakes they made last season.

Selfishly, keeping the same offense has helped smooth Nobles’ transition from first year to second year head coach.

“It has been a big asset to me. I don’t want kids to keep learning new things every year, I want them to keep doing the same things every year,” he said. “I want them to perfect what we did last year. A lot of times, we just made a lot of mistakes and if we fix those mistakes, we could do a lot better. We are fixing those mistakes now.”

EHS has athletes at the key positions and many of the spots are wide open at the moment for the Outlaws, but a few are set in stone.

Kyle Stewart, a quarterback, has the poise and accuracy to move the offense, and will start under center when Enterprise opens the season on Friday against Waitsburg. But once sophomore Trenton Neil returns from an injured ankle, Nobles says he will have the opportunity to compete for the starting spot.

“Kyle has been doing a tremendous job in practice and he is ready to step up to the plate,” Nobles said.

Brandon Nobles is tall and can be a deep threat at receiver for his quarterback, while running back Marcus Anderson is a home run waiting to happen in the backfield and tight end Casey Chitwood is a breath of fresh air.

“I don’t know what to expect with new teams and a new district, but I know we’ll be able to play with other teams this year,” Nobles said. “Heppner and Weston-McEwen are going to be tough and we’ll just see what happens.”

Enterprise will finally get a good look at his team on Friday when it straps on the shoulder pads for the first time in real competition. Then Nobles will see what his team is made of.

But so far, the Outlaws’ first week of practices have gone on without a hitch and Nobles says he couldn’t have asked for better practices.

“They have been pretty good,” he said. “The practices have been upbeat and it has just been beautiful weather these last few days. You can’t ask for anything nicer than this. The kids have caught on pretty quick. We haven’t really changed much this year, so it is like going over the same things. The starting group of kids caught on quick and I have been pleased with their effort so far.”

The Outlaws open the season on Friday in Waitsburg. Game time is at 7 p.m.