Staff photo / Dan Hiner Mineral Ridge head coach Andy Hake addresses his team prior to a practice at E.Z. Whittaker Field in Weathersfield on July 22.

WEATHERSFIELD — There’s no place like home, and for the first time in his coaching career, Andy Hake will be the head coach at Mineral Ridge.

Hake has seen different environments over the years. He’s had time as an assistant in Youngstown and eventually had head coaching stops at Western Reserve and Valley Christian.

But a return to Mineral Ridge was too much to pass up.

“I’ve been coaching a long time at a lot of other places and teaching for a long time at a lot of other places,” Hake said. “I’m from Ridge, I’ve always lived in Ridge my whole life. It’s really surreal.”

And the Rams faithful will see a lot of Hake and his squad to start the year.

Mineral Ridge will open its season against Pymatuning Valley, with the Rams playing five straight home games to kick off the season against United, Conneaut, Jackson-Milton and Waterloo. Then they’ll have four road games against Lowellville, Campbell, Springfield and Western Reserve. The Rams will close the regular season with a home meeting with McDonald.

But Hake doesn’t want to focus on the opponent. He stressed to his team the importance of focusing on their team on a week-by-week basis.

He wants to focus on things like coachability as he reshapes the program into his image.

“I feel we can get a lot of momentum going early with the numbers out and getting quality reps in practices,” Hake said. “We gotta focus on us. I got guys with great attitudes, I got great coaches — real veteran coaches that have been with me for a long time and some other guys we’ve been able to get on staff.”

Hake’s goal is to win the Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference Scarlet Tier title, and he wants to continue to build on the recent playoff appearances that the Rams have had in the last several seasons.

“You want sustained success. You want to build a program the whole community is proud of,” Hake said. “Winning is the byproduct of doing the right things, so we’re gonna do everything we can to do the right things to become better and make our fanbase, town and community proud.”

OFFENSE

Mineral Ridge has some size up front, and Hake plans to lean on those big men along the line.

That offensive line will be led by Chase Moore and left guard Jon Culp. Left tackle Ryan Aleshire, Khemani Winford-Johnson, Devon Robinson and Justin Sudetic will fill out the rest of the trenches.

“If you ask, ‘What our strength?’ It’s linemen, tight ends, H-backs,” Hake said. “If you wanna have a nice football team, put people in a phone booth and have that conversation.”

Mineral Ridge will have two major holes to fill at quarterback and running back. The Rams relied on Owen Shingledecker and Jacob Russell to power the offense, but both graduated.

There are four quarterbacks on the roster in senior Landon Bingham, junior Ethan Deley, sophomore Preston Kline and freshman Cannon Conway.

Blake Basista, Christian Dunlap, Chandler Busse and Preston Holbrook could all split time at running back while trying to replace Russell’s production.

Owen Sylak, Jackson Nance and Thomas Koniowsky are back for their junior seasons at receiver. James Jordan could see some more time as a sophomore outside, and a newcomer in Nick Anderson has caught Hake’s eye as well.

“We don’t know how good they are until we get going,” Hake said.

DEFENSE

The strength of the defense will be up front with the defensive line and linebackers.

Just like on offense, Moore will be the key man in the middle for the odd-man front. He could be joined by Sudetic and a deep group of linemen that battled it out for playing time over the summer.

Russell got his fair share of tackles in the second level, but Hake and his staff have a solid group returning to help. Dunlap, Holbrook and Derrick Rakich will be the linebackers in the Rams’ 3-3-5 defense after getting time last season.

Sylak, Koniowsky, Busse and Jonathan Rozzi return to help man the secondary.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Mineral Ridge didn’t kick much outside of extra points, but there are a couple options for the special teams position.

Steve Gutierrez and Braydon Cowger could see time as the kicker or punter this season.