Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – The 2024 Grizzly Bowl winners received their rings at CR last week.

By Ray Hamill — A busy spring for College of the Redwoods football will wrap up this week, as the local community college program gets set to host a scrimmage to close out spring practice.

Last week, Redwoods hosted a ring ceremony for the players who were a part of the 2024 Grizzly Bowl victory, while more than 50 players have been participating in spring football practices for the past five weeks.

And that’s not all for head coach Jason White and his players.

This fall, Redwoods will move up from the American Division to the more competitive National Division, which opens the door to compete for a state championship and should also help with recruiting, while White has also added some new coaches to his staff.

And speaking of recruiting, several H-DNL players have committed to the local JC program, with some of them already on campus and working out with their new teammates in the weight room.

The ring ceremony took place on campus on Thursday and was open to the local community.

The players who were a part of the 37-26 win over West Hills Colainga all received their winning rings, which were funded once again by CR boosters.

It was the second straight year the program has hosted a ring ceremony and the first time since 1976 that Redwoods won bowl games in back-to-back years.

“It’s special when you get the opportunity to have a ring ceremony, especially when you have that opportunity two years in a row,” White said. “We obviously would love it to become an annual thing.”

That will become more difficult with the jump to the more competitive National Division this fall, but White and his players are looking forward to the new challenge, which will see the team renew rivalries with schools like Butte and Santa Rosa.

“We’ve averaged eight wins the past three years and when the opportunity came up we volunteered to move up,” the head coach said. “I think we’re ready for that challenge. We’re at the point where we feel we can meet that challenge every week.”

The move will open the door to compete for a state championship.

“That is the end goal, honestly,” White said. “We’re not here just to be cannon fodder for someone else.”

As for the new recruits from the H-DNL, there was a limited pool of local seniors this year but some of the best have committed their futures to the local JC, including St. Bernard’s Kieran Flynn.

“He’s a hard worker and a kid we’re excited about,” White said of the SB senior, who will play offensive line at CR and has been involved with the college weight program all spring.

Eureka’s Chayton Rose and Gavyn Haberman also have committed their futures to CR.

Rose will play defensive end and is “another kid that has had a good offseason in the weight room,” according to White.

Haberman will play defensive back at CR, while Ferndale’s Henry Westfall will also join the program as a defensive end.

“Henry Westfall’s got a little bit of length and is another kid who we think is going to develop into something special for us,” White said.

Westfall was a part of the 2023 Ferndale state championship team.

Another state champion — Arcata running back Alex Greenway — will also join CR this year, along with McKinleyville’s Steven Graves (linebacker) and Jackson Najarian (defensive end), and all three are players the coaches are excited to see join their program.

There also are some coaching changes on the sidelines this year.

Former Eureka High head coach Garett Montana is reuniting with White as an offensive assistant coach, along with another former Loggers head coach, Andrew Haraldson, who helped out last year but will feature in a bigger role this fall, taking over as linebackers coach.

Also joining the staff is new running backs coach Tyler Haskell, who was a running back with the team the last couple of years and will replace longtime White assistant Junior Bean, who is stepping down for a “well-deserved retirement,” according to White, but will still lend his expertise from time to time.

Former Eureka Logger Miles Meynell, who has played with UC Davis for the past few seasons, is also joining the staff this year and will serve as an assistant offensive line coach.

CR’s spring practices, meanwhile, began on April 9 and the players have been working hard three afternoons a week since then, with the session set to end this Friday with a scrimmage on the new field.

The scrimmage is set to start around 5 p.m. and will be open to the local community free of charge.

“As far as what we’ve installed, we’re further along than we’ve ever been at this time of year,” White said. “It’s also a time when we can try new things out. We can experiment a little bit and see what different kids can do.

“I love spring football because it’s a lot more relaxed.”

One unit in particular has impressed the head coach this spring.

“We’re excited about our offensive line,” he said. “We’re probably bigger than we’ve ever been.”

White also said that the quarterbacks look good and “have been very competitive in practice,” while the defensive line has also impressed.

The team’s new on-campus field, meanwhile, will not be used for games this fall as work on the CR sports facilities continue, and Redwoods will continue to play home games at Cal Poly Humboldt’s Redwood Bowl for at least one more year.

However, the team will practice on the new all-weather field this fall and White is excited about that and the opportunity to host games there in the near future.

“That is just a God send in and of itself after practicing on a torn up softball field the last few years,” White said. “It’s an extremely nice field. Probably the nicest football field I’ve ever been on.

“It’s wonderful for our players. The facilities on the CR campus are going to be some of the best in the state once we get done.”