Football coach relives record year, looks ahead

By AMY ROUNDTREE

NEW PORT RICHEY -- Local football fans will remember the Gulf High School Buccaneers' 2006-2007 season as the first time in almost 50 years the team made it to the playoffs.

Besides the playoff bid and the 6-5 winning season, Head Coach Jay Fulmer has a lot of other reasons to remember the past year. He looked back at the season after the team was honored with a resolution during Tuesday's Pasco County Commission meeting.

Fulmer said his second season coaching the team "really was like a roller coaster. People will never know what we went through this year. It was a gut-wrenching, stay-awake-a-lot-of-nights kind of season."

Fulmer lists injuries, illnesses and other team troubles before the season started in August, in addition to what he calls "an unfavorable season" that "didn't allow the team to peak as they should have."

The Bucs lost 24-7 in the Class 3A, Region 2 state playoff game on Nov. 10 against Orlando's Bishop Moore Catholic High School. The Hornets carried an 11-0 record through the regular season and into the playoff contest with Gulf.

Fulmer tries not to blame the playoff loss on a nullified touchdown just before half-time.

"There's no telling what the outcome of the game would have been if we'd gone into the half with a 7-7 score," he said. "I feel like they would have played their guts out, but instead it just kept getting worse."

He's proud of his players, and proud of the playoff entry, the school's first since the playoff system was instituted in 1963.

They did something that Gulf has never done," he said. "It's huge for that group of seniors."

Fulmer also said he briefly experimented with "platooning," which doesn't allow players to switch between defensive and offensive roles,

"It all meant that we weren't really firing on all cylinders until mid-season," he said. By then, the team already had another challenge.

Quarterback Alton Voss, a senior, damaged his knee during the third game of the season.

"Alton wasn't really Alton from the third game on," said Fulmer. "We spent eight games trying to protect him -- a lot of our preparation was built around how to keep Alton from getting beaten on."

He said Voss had surgery Tuesday for a torn meniscus, and plans to play college football next year.

Fulmer admits losing Voss and 16 other seniors will make a difference to the team.

"We're going to struggle. We're starting all over," he said.

Fulmer has an idea who the next quarterback will be, but he's not naming names. He said he's talked to a "6-foot sophomore" who has never played the position.

"He's a work in progress," said Fulmer. "I feel very good about it."

Instead, he sees the "nucleus of our offense" as a trio of linemen who will be third-year starters.

"It will be my third "season and their third season starting. They won't have played with another coach but me. It's going to make a difference in how we play," said Fulmer.

I'm excited about that. We're ready to get back to work and go back to the drawing board, and maybe get a round or two into the playoffs next season."