Canyon View football rising up under a new coach, and a new-look offense
Canyon View football is on the rise.
Under first-year head coach Burke Miller, Canyon View is 5-2, already matching their win total from 2021.
Miller was on staff for last season’s 5-6 team and made the move to head coach this spring.
Despite the school coming off its best season since 2015, Miller knew changes were to be made.
“We made some changes down the stretch last year that I thought were good and we tried to keep everything that we had success on coming into this year.”
Towards the end of 2021, Canyon View made a change to drop back to pass more often.
“They had to earn it. At the beginning of the season, I talked about an earned offensive playbook, and we put that in our Hudl program. We have over 300 plays, but in the earned playbook, there were only the ones that we earned and that we told ourselves that we can execute this play.”
Canyon View was projected to return both of its quarterbacks from last year’s team, Andrew Barnes and Jake Garrett.
Garrett and Barnes took the majority of the reps at quarterback last year, combining to throw 11 touchdowns to six interceptions.
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Instead, Miller turned to junior Jaxon Jensen.
A potential move to St. George by Garrett and his family helped play a part in the decision to turn to Jensen.
Despite Garrett deciding to stay and play his senior year at Canyon View, Miller stayed with his decision in Jensen.
Barnes meanwhile moved from quarterback to receiver, prompting a position change to tight end for Garrett.
Also moving from quarterback to receiver is Nick Macias.
The move has proven to pay major dividends for Canyon View. Macias has 33 catches and nine touchdowns, both of which lead the Falcons.
“You can play Nick Macias anywhere you want,” Miller said. “He’s valuable everywhere you put him.”
Alongside on the perimeter with Macias is Traie Buhler. Buhler paces Canyon View with 518 yards and has six touchdowns of his own.
Buhler had 212 yards against Manti last Friday.
“We started throwing the ball a little bit more and it’s a little bit better for us,” said Buhler. “When Jaxon gets into trouble and rolls to my side, he’ll just throw it up to me and I’ll go get it. Usually it works out.”
Miller says the idea behind all the moving parts on offense was to get his best 11 athletes on the field.
In their season opener against Ogden, it was Macias over Jensen who took the first snaps under center, but it was all part of Miller’s plan.
“The plan for me inside my own head was to stick him right in the middle of that game —right into the fire,” Miller said of Jensen. “He came out on his second throw and threw a touchdown pass.”
Since getting thrown into the fire, Jensen has responded, throwing 20 touchdowns to just three interceptions. Two of those interceptions came in that first game.
Jensen says his success as a first-year starter is a little bit surprising.
His coaches and receivers disagree.
“Having Jaxon makes it so much easier,” said Macias. “I trust him a lot. He has a lot of confidence this year.”
“Jaxon is smart,” said Miller. “He’s coachable. There’s never a time where he comes off the field and doesn’t tell me what the safeties are doing, where the three-techs are at, what the defensive ends are doing. He’s fully aware of the entire field and what’s going on. I trust him.”
Miller recalls last Friday’s game against Manti that Jensen came over to the sidelines saying he felt as though his offense could score on a jet read.
On the next play, Macias scored the game-winning touchdown with 2:37 left to give Canyon View a 35-28 win.
When Jensen isn’t making calls at the line or dialing up passes to Macias or Buhler, Asher Groft and Kyler Roundy carry the running game.
The duo has split carries, with Groft getting 65 touches to Roundy’s 62. Both are over 300 yards of offense and have a pair of scores.
“They’re different kind of backs,” Miller said. “Kyler just has the mentality of 'I’m not going to run around you, I’m going to run over you.' Asher is just pure speed. We try to build plays around those two to utilize their talents.”
Roundy received the majority of the snaps against Manti, rushing for 59 yards and a touchdown.
This Friday’s contest will likely be the biggest test for Canyon View against 3A power Juab.
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Juab enters 7-0 and has scored 50 or more points four times this year. The Wasps are beating teams by an average of four touchdowns.
“Teams have had a little bit of success scoring points on them, but as far as stopping them, they haven’t had much success,” Miller said.
“I hope that if we have a perfect game we will absolutely blow them out, but we have to work all together and have a perfect gameday to compete with them,” said Buhler.
Miller’s team showed flashes that they were capable of upsets in week 3 against Cedar.
Despite trailing 28-0 in the second quarter, the Falcons answered by scoring 21 unanswered points, and were a yard away from a potential game-tying score before being stopped by Cedar on 4th down.
Two minutes later, a last-second heave from Jensen fell short, allowing Cedar to escape with a narrow 28-21 victory.
“We’ve come into this season saying we don’t quit. I’ve told the kids — as a head coach — I’ve never been the kind to quit, ever and we expect the same out of them. We’ve beat that into their mentality of the whole culture that we’re trying to build with the kids is that you don’t quit, no matter what happens.”
That mentality has already shown through.
Twice this season, Canyon View has been down by at least two touchdowns and has come back to win, including the victory over Manti.
“That Cedar game we just came up short,” Miller said. “The Cedar game is something that Canyon View has looked forward to in the past, and then they go flat after that. We don’t want that. We want to have that good rivalry with them, and we want to beat them, but we also want that to be another game on our schedule that we can compete in. We still had some of those rivalry nerves and it cost us.”
“When we finally got them settled down, they realized ‘Hey, we can compete. This is different now.”
The responsibility for stopping the Juab offense will fall heavily on the shoulders of Lincoln Rushton and Marc Richardson. Rushton is second to Karver Mock in tackles with 50 but leads the Falcons with five tackles for loss. Richardson meanwhile leads the team in sacks with 4.5.
“They’re very aggressive,” said Miller. “Good football players. Lincoln — because of his talents — we want to use him a little bit more at running back this week. They just have a nose for the ball. It doesn’t matter where you put Marc, he’s going to be productive.”
Canyon View hasn’t finished at or above .500 since 2005.
Currently, Canyon View is #4 in the 3A RPI poll.
A win in their final three regular-season games would clinch at least a .500 record in 2022.
Since its inception in 1997, the best season in school history came in 2000, when the Falcons finished 7-5.
Canyon View recorded three shutouts that season per MaxPreps, including a 12-0 win over Dixie.
The Falcons also beat Cedar and Pine View in that season.
Getting back to .500 is just one step forward in Miller’s plan.
“It would mean a lot, but we expect that,” Miller said. “To go over .500 is definitely one of our goals, but it’s not our main goal. Our main goal is to become a state championship contender year in and year out.”
“It feels great,” said Jensen on changing the culture at Canyon View. “Obviously this program hasn’t done super great, but it feels good that we can do all these things and maybe change the program for future years.”
The momentum brought on by Miller can already be seen.
In the off-season, the locker room was completely redone. Prior to this season, players didn’t have lockers to hang their jerseys, and changed out of their backpacks.
Canyon View has also started a booster club, something it never had before.
The growth for the Falcons is tangible, and Miller and his team are just getting started.
“We’ve earned to be where we’re at.”
Sean Ellertson is a sports reporter for the St. George Spectrum & Daily News. To continue to support his work, please subscribe to The Spectrum. Follow Sean on Twitter @SeanEllertson.
This article originally appeared on St. George Spectrum & Daily News: Canyon View football rising up under a new coach and offense
