Written by: Lucas Gebhart
Coeur d’Alene is entering some unchartered territory this season.
The 2022 group is still loaded with talent and the Vikings may still win a lot of games, but some of their key players don’t have much, if any, varsity playing experience.
One of those players is the Viking’s starting quarterback, junior Jamison Kizziar. He is one of many key players being asked to step into a key role.
“We have talented players,” said head coach Shawn Amos. “But they need to be able to adjust to the speed of varsity football at the 5A level.”
Amos, who now enters his 26 season, says depth will be the strength of this year’s team, especially on the offensive and defensive lines. The key, he says, is finding leadership.
“Our off-season commitment has been impressive,” Amos said. “This senior class has shown great leadership, which needs to continue.”
With fresh talent coming up through the ranks, Amos is hoping to reestablish Coeur d’Alene as North Idaho’s premiere high school football program, something that wasn’t necessarily the case a year ago.
The Vikings have been a mainstay in the state playoff and still won the Inland Empire Conference in 2021, but they needed a three-way tiebreaker to go their way in order to do so.
After losing to Post Falls in mid-October and blowing out Lewiston the following week, three of the four schools sat deadlocked at the top of the conference at season’s end.
The tie breaker went Coeur d’Alene’s way and the Vikings grabbed the North’s top seed in the state playoffs. The reward was a first-round bye, but the results weren’t as exciting.
The Vikings lost on their home field to Eagle. It was the first time since 2016 they didn’t win the conference outright and the first time since 2015 they didn’t win their playoff-opener.
This season, two early tests will showcase how ready this young group is for high-level 5A football as a playoff-style schedule waits for Coeur d’Alene in the opening weeks.
The Vikings open the year with Rigby, a school that has played for the last three 5A titles, winning two of them.
Meanwhile the only 5A team to beat Rigby in the state championship over that span waits in the wings as a road trip to Rocky Mountain is scheduled for August 26. Both schools figure to be state title contenders this year. Time will tell if Coeur d’Alene will join them.