The Vandegrift Viper football season is underway. Four Points News interviewed head coach Drew Sanders recently. Here are his thoughts on the season ahead, competition and on some key players making up this year’s team.
Q: Who have been some of the surprise vocal leaders in the locker room this summer?
Drew Sanders: I’ve liked how Gavin Koester has stepped up and become more and more vocal throughout the summer. He’s always been a hard worker, but you’ve got to be a hard worker and be a vocal leader if you want to be that person that everybody looks to so it’s been good to see that.
I think Griffin Gorrebeeck has been a natural vocal leader. He’s a senior, a returning starter, and he’s continued what I expect from our guys. So I’d say those two guys right now stand out as far as vocal leadership. We have several other good guys who are in progress and trying to get there and we are expecting them to step up.
Q: Who has earned starting spots, and who are some of the new playmakers you’re excited about?
Sanders: We still have some position battles going on in certain key positions.
Returning sophomore last year, starter Luke Davis — I’m excited that he’s back. He made a big impact on our team last year. Colt Stevens was a sophomore starter, and we expected him to step up, and he has so far in the secondary.
On the defensive line, Jake Venuto played a lot last year. He expects to be one of those leaders. I’m thrilled with Gavin Law, who’s a returning sophomore starter from last year. We had multiple sophomores last year play for us, and Gavin was our nose tackle starter. There are several key players who are also there on defense who will be making big plays for us.
On the offensive side, Kaden O’Rourke played a ton last year and has been the vocal leader of the offensive line. There are multiple other guys who have stepped up there.
Our two running backs are both back. Preston James comes back off an injury, and Evan Williamson is coming off his nice playoff performance. He got moved up from the JV and did a great job. Of course, we have Rian Brar as a senior.
We named Gavin Koester our starting QB on Friday
, look forward to seeing him in that role. We have a very deep and capable QB room this year.
Q: You mentioned new players. Who else are you excited about?
Sanders: We’ve also got Ontario Jackmon. He made a huge catch against Westlake in the Westlake playoff game, so we’re excited about him coming back.
Then we have several move-ups from JV who are going to make big-time plays for us this year in all positions on the offensive side.
We’re looking to decide who our kicker is, so we’re figuring that out right now. We’ll have that all settled hopefully by Game 1.
As far as our coaching staff, we did hire three new coaches, so we’re excited to bring most of our staff back and excited about the 2026 season.
Q: What does a successful season look like for this program, especially considering the success you’ve had over the past several years?
Sanders: Goals for a season to me is pretty simple. We want to try to achieve this team’s potential. I think this team’s potential is pretty high.
Every year we set a goal of being district champion. Every year we set a goal of playing deep in the playoffs, always wanting to practice on Thanksgiving… That’s a very successful season. If you can practice on Thanksgiving, that means you’re three rounds deep and man, you’ve done a great job.
We’d love to continue winning double-digit wins. We’ve been that multiple years in a row, and so all those things are important.
Most importantly, we want to be good young men in the community. They act right. They represent the Vandegrift name well. We want to be good student-athletes too. Those are all goals for us every year, and we strive hard as a coaching staff to try to help our kids reach those goals.
Q: Who are the biggest games and opponents coming up this season?
Sanders: We’ve got a smaller district this year. We only have seven teams, so that means only six district games. For the first time in a long time — maybe ever, I need to go back and look — we have four games where we have a month of games to prepare.
What that means is I think you’re going to see some experimentation from us, with some guys in different positions. We’re going to figure things out because we’ve all got to get ready for the first district game.
We’re playing multiple top-ranked teams. This might be one of the toughest pre district schedules in all of Austin. We’ve got two of the best teams from San Antonio, Johnson and Brennan, State Champion Liberty Hill and, of course, rival Round Rock, which is always good.
Those four teams are going to find our problems, and we’re going to try to fix those as we go, all in preparation for our first district game.
In the district, you can’t overlook anybody. Hutto’s got to be looked at as a top threat, but you can’t forget the other teams that are in there. That’s just the way it is. But that’s going to be a huge game.
Each of those teams made the playoffs last year. Cedar Park is a championship program, East View made the playoffs last year, Vista Ridge always has a playoff team and will be very tough too. Rouse and Leander have new coaches and will be a challenge.
Q: What’s the team’s theme this year?
Sanders: Our theme this year is every year picked by the kids.
This year’s theme is “Relentless,” and we just want to be relentless toward our goals, trying to achieve what we’ve worked to achieve.
We want our program to just kind of be viewed as relentless, where we never stop coming after you. Our effort level, our intensity, our enthusiasm never stops when you play us, whether it’s the first quarter or fourth quarter. It looks exactly the same, wave after wave of effort and execution.
Interview by Lynette Haaland, Four Points News