Riverview (FL) football starting anew under coach Antonio Rodriguez

Four transfers and no significant losses bolsters the Sharks' hopes in 2022

RIVERVIEW, FL – A very optimistic 2-0 start to the 2021 campaign for the Riverview Sharks quickly spiraled into dropping eight straight games.

The 2021 season ended up being the last for William Mosel, who stepped away as head coach of the program. He has been followed by new head coach Antonio Rodriguez, who goes into year one with Riverview with a spring game win under his belt as the Sharks entered the summer with a lot of optimism for the program.

“Winning our spring jamboree was huge for our program,” Rodriguez said. “We worked hard as a coaching staff this off-season to change the culture by instilling characteristics we felt were ingredients necessary to cultivate a winning culture.”

“We were preaching things such as discipline, accountability ‘Count On Me’ and demanding we have a better work ethic than our opponents by being ‘Black & Blue Tough.’ Our vision manifested into a success which has helped to get some excitement going for our football program leading into the fall.”

The transfer bug around the Tampa Bay Area has been evident with transferring becoming part of the high school football world around the state. Rodriguez said, though, the transfer bug hasn’t adversely affected Riverview. In fact, the Sharks have actually gotten four new players coming over to the program.

“We have had four varsity players transfer into our program, and zero significant offensive or defensive contributors transfer out,” Rodriguez said.

“Offensively we now have a junior quarterback named Aaron Turner who trains with former South Carolina/Jefferson High School quarterback Stephen Garcia. Also we now have a junior wide receiver named Christian Feliciano who is able to run the entire route tree and is a very good blocker.”

Riverview has a slew of contributors returning to the roster, including senior wide receiver Harrison Hensley, who currently has two Division I offers from Stetson and Davidson. Junior RB Rico Shoats is a load at tailback at 5-foot-10, 215 pounds. Rico had over 1,000 total yards last year and the Sharks are looking for him to have even a bigger year this fall. Jon Stark leads the way on the offensive line at 6-foot-3, 325 pounds.

“In 2022, we will focus on how we play rather than who we play,” Rodriguez said. “Our goal is to take each game one at a time and one play at a time. We do not want lose games because of mistakes or self-sabotage because we are not the more disciplined team.”

“We want to worry about being more prepared than our opponents and control what we can and not worry with what we can not control. We feel at the end of the day if we do our very best, success will find us. We will take each game one at a time and then hopefully in the end we have done enough to be in the mix for a post season run.”

Andy Villamarzo can be reached at andyvillamarzo@gmail.com and follow him at @Andy_Villamarzo.