It took the Bearcats a 296-mile round trip to West Liberty to get third-year head coach Gary Pence his first Class 2A playoff win. The 49-6 mercy-rule win at Morgan County was the first postseason victory since 2022.
Which means little now.
“The main thing I think that makes this season unique is now, being Year 3, my current seniors, they really know the culture and what I’m expecting here,” Pence says. They’ve kind of taken a more of a leadership role compared to my first two years.”
Walton-Verona begins this season Aug. 21 at Bishop Brossart.
Here are five things to know about the Bearcats headed into the 2026 season:
Preach, preach and preach
Perhaps the most distressing trend was a 1-4 start last season – the second straight stumble. (Walton-Verona opened at 1-5 record in 2024.)
Pence made two changes in summer workouts – different practice schedules and lots of sermonizing sans the pulpit and choir robes.
“I feel like working them even harder, doing more situational stuff, just really preaching to our player how we have to be ready to go from first game on,” Pence said. “There’s no getting our feet wet and kind of feeling things out … We’ve got to be on the attack from day one if we want take that next step as a program.”
Pence said practices his first two years weren’t long enough.
“And I didn’t do a good enough job, I don’t think, teaching things,” Pence said. “We’ll lift … we’ll do some whiteboard stuff, walk through things, and then we get on the field.
“I think we’ve seen progress with that because our guys seem to be playing faster because they’re understanding things better, which hopefully translates to a better start because usually, the last couple of years, it seems like once our guys start figuring it out in the middle of the year, that’s when we turn it on.”
Walton-Verona averaged 23 points a game last year. The first challenge will be replacing quarterback Avery Howe, who threw for 1,733 yards and 16 touchdowns.
Blown leads
“Overall, (2025) was an up and down season,” Pence said. “We felt like we should’ve had a better year overall.”
Walton-Verona’s 5-7 record last year was the third straight sub-.500 season. Pence felt the Bearcats might’ve finished at least 8-4 if not for the blown leads in home losses to Boone County (34-26 in double overtime Sept. 12), Harrison County (28-7 Sept. 19) and Grant County (26-21 Oct. 30).
“We had two games we were winning at halftime and ended up losing, one of them being in double-overtime to Boone County,” Pence said. “We were up nine points on Grant and then lose it. Harrison County, we were winning at halftime as well.”
Senior tackle Sam Koester was maybe angrier than Pence.
“Boone County sucked,” Koester said. “Harrison County sucked, it being homecoming and all … (Grant County) also sucks being senior night and all.”
Lynn-sanity, hopefully
Junior Drew Lynn and sophomore Braxton Parr will share the snaps at quarterback, opposing defenses hopefully won’t get a breather – Lynn was the leading rusher (744 yards, 14 touchdowns) and third-leading receiver (23 catches, 294 yards and a touchdown). He also threw for 63 yards and a touchdown.
What’s more, his 43 tackles (and four for losses) was fourth on the team.
Lynn has heard about former NBA player Jeremy Lin, who helped turn around the New York Knicks during the 2011-12 season and spark the phrase “Linsanity.”
“Drew’s a multi-sport athlete,” Pence said. “I know he, last year, played basketball for a little bit, and then he was also on the track team last year. He’s just a kind of, like a Swiss army knife – he’s one of those guys who kind of can do a little bit of everything because he’s got good (6-2, 200-pound) size.”
Lynn ran for 91 yards and three touchdowns against Morgan County. It wasn’t 2025’s only highlight – he ran for 142 yards and five scores in a 52-13 win at Gallatin County.
“I definitely liked quarterback, but last year I just had a lot of success with like running the ball and everything,” Lynn says.
Lynn is the likely choice on short-yardage situations. “But really I feel like I can do a lot,” he said.
‘Two of the best’
Some more good news: the top two tacklers – senior inside linebackers AJ Yutze and Cooper Burch – return.
Yutze is switching numbers this season – he’ll wear No. 40 instead of last year’s No. 50 because he’ll also be a fullback. There was no disguising what he did last year – a team-high 122 tackles with 8.5 for losses and a sack.
You also couldn’t hide Burch on defense, either – 98 tackles with 14.5 for loss and three sacks.
“They’re probably two of the best inside backers in all of Northern Kentucky this year,” Pence says. “I think people will really start to know those names because of their great size, great speed, just great leaders in general.”
Yutze was quite possibly the only player in Northern Kentucky who played with two broken hands last season, which prevented him from playing fullback. He also had surgery to repair a torn labrum in his shoulder.
“I think it went fine,” Yutze said. “I mean, my hands healed fine after the season. I still played with all I could with every bit of effort I had.”
Burch says playing with Yutze “just felt pretty good.”
It’s good to kind of play off him sometimes; it just gives me some confidence,”
‘An outlier’
The team went to a Cincinnati Bengals practice Aug. 4. All the Bearcats were impressed with the speed and the precision of the pro game, but there was some breaking news that had nothing to do with Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase or anyone else wearing black and orange stripes.
Yutze’s favorite team is – the Baltimore Ravens.
“I hope the Ravens win,” Yutze says. “I’m an outlier for sure.”
Koester didn’t know Yutze liked the Ravens.
“He does that to make me mad,” Koester said, adding there would be more trash talking than 100 Rumpke truck drivers share over coffee if the Bengals win. “Oh, I am never going to let him live it down, I’ll tell you that.”
We’re previewing all 22 NKY football teams from July 27-August 17. Check out five things to know about each team below:
