Berkley has their New Football Coach.

Written Friday June 9th at 2:10 PM

The Berkley Bears have hired their new football coach in Billy Keenist.

Keenist has been named as the new head coach of the Bears. He takes over for coach Chris Sikora whom stepped down a few weeks ago.

Keenist was known for his days at Oxford where he played and coached for the Wildcats as an assistant. He was the offensive coordinator at Troy Athens for the last two seasons.

Berkley under Sikora has turned the program around, going 21-11 the last three seasons including a 9-3 stretch in 2015 where the Bears went to the Regional final that season. Berkley finished 6-4 last season losing to Groves in the pre-district.

Berkley moved up from the Blue to the White and will open up the season at Hurley Field against Farmington in August. They will be in a division in which they will face Oak Park, Harrison, Seaholm, Groves, Stoney Creek, Rochester, and Troy.

Keenist should have a good group of players coming back in the form of quarterback Drake Monroe, running back Keder Browning, fullback and tight end Evan Payne, defensive end Anthony Maris, and lineman Babacar Diop.

Keenist can run any type of offense but according to a source he would like to run a veer offense this season, which is very unlike Keenist. At Troy Athens, the Red Hawks were normally a spread team under coach Josh Heppener while at Oxford under Rowley, it’s pound the rock, power football. Defensibly expect his team to play a ton of quarters coverage.

Thoughts

Keenist is a good coach and a good person but is walking into a hornets nest at Berkley. I’ve been hearing from sources that it has been rough in the last few weeks over at Berkley with some changes affecting the players. The upcoming schedule is tough enough along with the league. Let alone change something that was successful, putting in a whole new offense, a whole new defense, and a whole new culture.

It could very well get ugly over there in the short term. Long term it could be a good move but he has to win and produce results.

It will be interesting how Keenist does over at Berkley. How the players will respond to his system is a big question mark. We shall see what happens.

Stay tuned to OAA Now for the latest on this developing story.