Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

There will be new head football coaches at four different schools in the Your Prep Sports area this fall.

With all the shuffling on the sideline this season Your Prep Sports is helping area fans get to know the new coaches with series of question and answer sessions that will publish in the weeks leading up to the season.

Regina is one of the Your Prep Sports area programs with a new head coach this season though the Regals have a familiar face leading the program with long-time defensive coordinator Jason Dumont taking over for Marv Cook.

Dumont was the defensive coordinator for 14 seasons under Cook who stepped down in May after leading the Regals to 159-20 record and seven state titles in 14 seasons.

Regina is coming off a 11-1 season a year ago in which it won 11 consecutive games to close the season downing Grundy Center 52-28 in the Class A title game.

The Dumont-led Regina defense held opponents to 17.4 points per game in five playoff wins a year ago.

Regina opens the season on August 27 at home against Williamsburg.

Your Prep Sports: You have been an assistant at Regina for 14 years but can you explain how you initially started at coaching at Regina more than a decade ago?

Jason Dumont: Marv (Cook) and I had played together at Iowa for a year and were friends, not just because of that but he was a West Branch guy and I was a Mid-Prairie guy so it was kind of the small town kid makes it to the Hawkeyes, a similar path that a lot of Iowans have taken.

His oldest son Drew and my oldest daughter Shelby were classmates and then his daughter Logan and my daughter Greyson were classmates and best friends since they were little so when Marv took the job he called me and asked me to come over and that’s kind of how it all happened.

YPS: The continuity within the staff has been a big thing at Regina over the years. How important was that for you when you took over to keep as many of those guys together?

Dumont: It was the most important thing. How many high school staffs can you look at that have been together for 15 years? Coach (Ed) Hinkle, myself and Marv were kind of the original three amigos but to have guys like Mark Mitchell and Jim Poynton and some of these other guys that have been long-time friends and former players and Brad Bean who has now been with us eight or nine years you just don’t see that a lot. So, to keep that system in place and keep that consistency was paramount.

The first thing that happened when Marv resigned was we said if we can find a way to keep this together regardless of who the head coach is lets do it and everybody was like let’s go. There are eight guys on this staff that could be head coaches somewhere else.

YPS: With the new staff are you going to continue to call the defense?

Dumont: That’s not going to change, I am going to continue to do the defense and when you have guys like Ed Hinkle and Brad that can run the offense from an Xs and Os you aren’t going to see a lot of difference on the field and now as the head coach I don’t need to go stick my nose in that. I watch it and then I talk about it but I don’t need to worry about it so I can continue to focus on defense.

From that standpoint we are still going to be aggressive and get after you. We’ve always coached to the personnel that we have, there have been years when we’ve been a three-man front, there have been years when we’ve been a four-man front, you watch the state championship game where we threw in a whole new package just for that game and we will continue to do that and work around the guys that we have on the field.

YPS: How much have you seen the high school game change since you started coaching more than a decade ago?

Dumont: First of all, you have to defend the spread. Regina wasn’t necessarily the first one that ran it but I would say Regina and coach Hinkle and Marv were at least one of the very first small schools to run it. 15 years ago you just didn’t see a lot of it and that’s probably the biggest change as far as what you are seeing on Xs and Os you have to be able to defend teams that run and throw the ball.

It’s not often that you are facing a team that is going to run the ball 90 percent of the time and 15 years ago half of your schedule would be that type of team and you just don’t see that. I think a lot of that is from youth sports, it’s from these younger coaches that are in the game that grew up watching the ball get thrown around, played with the ball getting thrown around and it’s been good for the game. It’s been good for the game. You just don’t lineup and play a team that is going to run option the whole game or run veer the whole game. That happens once in a while still but not very often.

YPS: I have talked to a lot of coaches that have been able to coach their sons. How much are you looking forward to that?

Dumont: I’m looking forward to it a lot but it’s always a challenge. I watched Marv handle it with two kids and Ashton and Drew were both great quarterbacks but were two different personalities and Marv had to adjust to that and that is where it’s a learning process for me as we go along. The advantage that I have is that I have an offensive staff where I don’t have to be hands on with my son on the practice field and that’s a good thing.

Don’t get me wrong I give my input to my son but I’ve tried to put some buffers between him and myself on the field. I think it’s tough for both the coach and the son sometimes because you have to turn off the dad and the son mode and you have to turn on the coach and the player mode for those two and half hours and then you have to turn it back off. It’s not really easy to do all the time but I’m really looking forward to that and being able to watch him and his teammates. That will be fun.”

Did you enjoy this subscription free article? Help keep Your Prep Sports free by donating.