Talawanda Braves football entered a new era with the opening of practice for the 2012 season this week.

A new school building, new sports facilities including a turf football field, new head coach and new league all signal what new athletic director Jason Grunkemeyer called “a clean slate.”

“Now, I want the athletes to appreciate this,” he said. “As a department and school, it is a chance to change the atmosphere. That’s exciting. You do not have these things come together very often. It is important, especially for the football team, to capitalize on the freshness.”

First-year head football coach J.D. Vonderheide said his players seemed to be taking that feeling to heart as they held their first day of practice on Monday.

“I’m pleased with the results,” he said. “The kids are energetic and enthused. We had 75 out, which is 15 or 20 more than last year.”

Grunkemeyer joined the Talawanda staff in June with Vonderheide already in place but said he likes what he has seen and heard about his football coach.

“The program needs a spark plug,” Grunkemeyer said. “He has done a great job resuscitating interest in the program. Success, especially in football, does not come overnight. Going 0-10 to the playoffs is difficult. I’m not saying it cannot be done and I don’t want to limit what we can do, but he’s laying a foundation, leading to success not just this year, but for years to come.”

Vonderheide was named football coach in January with no permanent staff position. He expected to spend this year as a long-term sub but has been hired as study hall monitor. Sitting in his classroom, which also will serve as a team meeting room, the football coach said players were impressed with being able to sit in one room where they all had seats and were not crowded.

Rules changes now allow coaches to have contact with players for up to 10 days in the summer prior to starting preseason practices and Vonderheide said those days were valuable to the players as well as the coaches.

“Consistency was as good as it could be in the summer,” he said. “The kids worked their butts off in our two four-day mini camps. It was a good transition from school to the summer to now.”

After the summer’s mini camps, Vonderheide said he felt he entered Monday’s first practice with a good grasp of which players would fit in various positions. He said there is a good balance between the classes on the roster. He said the ideal is to have 20-25 from each class on the team and the numbers are a bit below that with approximately 20 seniors there for the first day of practice Monday and about 20 juniors and 15 sophomores.

Vonderheide said he is the offensive coordinator and has a better grasp of players for the offensive positions, but would be meeting with his coaches to review defensive positions. The Braves, he said, have three quarterback prospects, three-deep receivers and one or two fullbacks, even though the position was not used in last year’s offense.

“Offensively, the depth is good,” he said. “Defensively, we are probably two deep across the board. It’s a testament to the coaches, who have a good feel for the players.”

Every coach would prefer to have a full-platoon football team but the numbers make it a reality that some will play on both offense and defense. He said 10-15 are capable of that, but figures six to eight will actually do it, and he will rotate other players in to keep them strong for the fourth quarter. One likely candidate for that will be Dakota Byrd.

“He will not play every single play of every single game,” Vonderheide said.

Coming from the coaching staff at Harrison, Vonderheide raised some eyebrows when he accepted the Talawanda position.

“Harrison will be a special game for me. I’ve had Sept. 21 circled on my calendar for a long time,” he said.

The Braves will open the season at home with Monroe on Aug. 24 with special ceremonies celebrating the opening of the new field. Vonderheide recognizes that there may be some jitters among his players with the pomp of the evening, but said he expects them to settle down quickly.

“By the third series of the Monroe game, they need to understand this is a new Talawanda team,” Vonderheide said. “We will sneak up on some teams for about two quarters, but they will see we are not going away.”