No football team in the Kanawha Valley prides itself on offensive line play more than Hurricane, but the Redskins are going to have to rebuild that part of their team this season.

"We lost our entire line, our whole starting line,'' said Hurricane coach Willis May. "We've got some backups left, but that will probably be our weakest part [going into August workouts].''

May, however, did see some encouraging signs during the recent three-week summer practice period, which officially wrapped up Saturday around the state.

"Yeah, we've got some holes to fill,'' May said, "but the guys put a lot of confidence in me this summer with their abilities and what they're capable of doing. They were doing things I hadn't seen them do before. Everyone felt it was their turn to step up. I feel a little better than I did at the start of the three-week period.''

For the record, the Redskins also lost much of their skill-position talent - tailback Terrell Martin, fullback Kyle Cooper and receivers Andy Higginbotham and Mitchell Bumpus. But they do return senior-to-be quarterback Luke Briggs and deep-threat receiver Roger Turner.

Briggs threw for 977 yards and seven touchdowns and ran for five scores. Turner caught seven passes for 248 yards and two TDs.

"Skill-wise, I'm pretty happy where we're at,'' May said. "I feel like we've got two deep skill-wise we can throw in there and not lose a beat.

"I don't know if we'll be an [I-formation] team. We've got to figure out who's going to carry the ball. Last year, we had Cooper and Terrell and the 'I' was the best situation. I don't know if we'll do that, or if we'll go [with] four, five wide [receivers]. I don't have a clue yet. Our offense is so open that we can go four wide or we can use two, three backs. We've got to find out who can play what position and put them in the correct spots.''

Hurricane competed in the 7-on-7 passing camp at West Virginia University, and practiced with neighboring schools Poca, Buffalo and Nitro in similar drills. May also took a day last week to invite former players to work out with the current squad.

"I thought we'd end up with 10, 15 guys,'' May said, "but we got 35. That was a really nice day. I enjoyed that. We had kids show like Justin Henry, Brad Anania, Kyle Cooper, Travis Jones, Jared Stephens. We got some good work in. We got a lot accomplished. We had people in the stands watching, yelling. We should have sold tickets, the whole deal. Maybe we'll take a look at that in the future. It was good all the way around.''

Reach Rick Ryan at 304-348-5175 or rickr...@wvgazette.com.

No football team in the Kanawha Valley prides itself on offensive line play more than Hurricane, but the Redskins are going to have to rebuild that part of their team this season.

"We lost our entire line, our whole starting line,'' said Hurricane coach Willis May. "We've got some backups left, but that will probably be our weakest part [going into August workouts].''

May, however, did see some encouraging signs during the recent three-week summer practice period, which officially wrapped up Saturday around the state.

"Yeah, we've got some holes to fill,'' May said, "but the guys put a lot of confidence in me this summer with their abilities and what they're capable of doing. They were doing things I hadn't seen them do before. Everyone felt it was their turn to step up. I feel a little better than I did at the start of the three-week period.''

For the record, the Redskins also lost much of their skill-position talent - tailback Terrell Martin, fullback Kyle Cooper and receivers Andy Higginbotham and Mitchell Bumpus. But they do return senior-to-be quarterback Luke Briggs and deep-threat receiver Roger Turner.

Briggs threw for 977 yards and seven touchdowns and ran for five scores. Turner caught seven passes for 248 yards and two TDs.

"Skill-wise, I'm pretty happy where we're at,'' May said. "I feel like we've got two deep skill-wise we can throw in there and not lose a beat.

"I don't know if we'll be an [I-formation] team. We've got to figure out who's going to carry the ball. Last year, we had Cooper and Terrell and the 'I' was the best situation. I don't know if we'll do that, or if we'll go [with] four, five wide [receivers]. I don't have a clue yet. Our offense is so open that we can go four wide or we can use two, three backs. We've got to find out who can play what position and put them in the correct spots.''

Hurricane competed in the 7-on-7 passing camp at West Virginia University, and practiced with neighboring schools Poca, Buffalo and Nitro in similar drills. May also took a day last week to invite former players to work out with the current squad.

"I thought we'd end up with 10, 15 guys,'' May said, "but we got 35. That was a really nice day. I enjoyed that. We had kids show like Justin Henry, Brad Anania, Kyle Cooper, Travis Jones, Jared Stephens. We got some good work in. We got a lot accomplished. We had people in the stands watching, yelling. We should have sold tickets, the whole deal. Maybe we'll take a look at that in the future. It was good all the way around.''

Reach Rick Ryan at 304-348-5175 or rickr...@wvgazette.com.