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Southern Utah football preview: Demario Warren says don't sleep on T-Birds

Courtesy photo SUU football coach Demario Warren and his wife, Amanda.

The Southern Utah Thunderbirds sideline will be full of fresh faces this fall. But if anybody knows not to underestimate youth, it’s SUU coach Demario Warren.

“We’re young, but that doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “We’re not going to use that as an excuse. I’m young, too.”

In fact, Warren, at just 32 years old, is expecting big things from his kids as he enters his second season running the show in Cedar City.

The Thunderbirds went 6-5 last season, finishing fourth in the Big Sky Conference — and Warren wants to build off last year’s success. The Thunderbirds hope a combination of an up-tempo offense and a deep defensive unit will be the recipe to help them compete for a Big Sky championship.

“You can see from our history we’ve been up and down here,” Warren said. “We’re trying to be consistent winners.”

How young are the Thunderbirds this year? Warren had nearly 50 freshmen in camp, and the coach can count on one hand the number of seniors he has lining up on offense.

One of those seniors, quarterback Patrick Tyler, has been locked in a battle with sophomore Aaron Zwahlen, a former four-star recruit, all fall for the Thunderbirds’ starting job — and Warren said he may not make his decision known publicly until his team takes the field at Oregon on Sept. 2.

“They’ve both had great camps,” Warren said. “They’ve made it hard,” the coach said. “They’ve continued to try to one up on another. That’s what you want. They’re pushing each other every single day.”

A couple of things the Thunderbirds know for sure: they will have to rely on their veterans to lead the way for the youngsters on defense, and that, because of the team’s up-tempo offense, those new names will quickly become familiar as SUU relies on a deep rotation to stay fresh.

“Whether it’s a good or bad drive, it usually goes pretty fast,” SUU senior safety Kyle Hannemann said. “We’re confident in them, but it doesn’t seem like we get as much of a break as you normally would.”

The Thunderbirds have preseason all-conference selections in linebacker Mike Needham and defensive tackle Robert Torgerson, but SUU believes it will have strength in numbers this fall.

“It’s going to take a lot of depth,” Warren said. “With our offense going as fast as they do, it’s all about depth on defense, guys who can give the starters a spell. We’ve built our defensive roster to be deep at every position.”

Torgerson said the Thunderbirds are as “deep as we’ve been since I’ve been here.”

“We might be young but definitely put in the work. We’ve got a bunch of new guys. Everybody’s fighting real hard to get ready, and we’re going to rely on them big time rotation-wise,” the senior said. “I think we’re going to shock a lot of people.”

Southern Utah schedule

Sept. 2 • at Oregon, 6:15 p.m.

Sept. 9 • at Stephen F. Austin, 5 p.m.

Sept. 16 • vs. N. Iowa, 6 p.m.

Sept. 23 • at Sacramento St., 7 p.m.

Oct. 7 • vs. Cal Poly, 6 p.m.

Oct. 14 • at Weber St. 6 p.m.

Oct. 21 • vs. E. Washington, 5 p.m.

Oct. 28 • at N. Colorado, TBD

Nov. 4 • vs. N. Dakota, 6 p.m.

Nov. 11 • at UC Davis, 5 p.m.

Nov. 18 • vs. N. Arizona, 2:30 p.m.