The Brenham High School pipeline of football talent should keep flowing this year, but the product figures to be somewhat crude early in the season.

Brenham lacks the refined talent that seemed to flow from the program in recent years, but coach Glen West believes the Cubs have a chance to develop into another strong team.

"We have some wonderful young men that are going to be very good football players this year," West said. "They're just very inexperienced."

The Cubs must replace 16 starters from last year's team that went 8-3 and lost in the first round of the Class 4A playoffs. Brenham will go for its fifth consecutive postseason appearance with a group of players who are talented but green.

"It makes you nervous at first," West said. "It also means there could be a reward toward the end of the season as you see your athletes constantly mature and get better. In our first scrimmage we were talking to a player about containment. After we told him three times, I realized that he didn't know what containment meant. We had to tell him not to let the quarterback get outside of him."

The Cubs have abundant experience in the defensive secondary. Cornerbacks Kendrick Washington and Kendrell Washington, along with safeties Jeremy Hall and Trenton Thomas, are returning starters with great potential.

West said the Washington twins will play college football. Thomas has committed to sign with Texas Christian. Hall is a 192-pounder who started every game last season.

"Kendrick and Kendrell Washington are as good a cover corner people as there are around," West said. "All those things that we're not in a lot of places, they are. They've done it, and they understand the language."

Brenham coaches have thought about moving Thomas to inside linebacker, where he could bolster the front seven. Junior defensive end Jeremy Levi, a sprinter with 4.4-second speed in the 40-yard dash, should led the defensive front. The Cubs expect to use a three-man rotation at tackle with senior Steven Mays, junior Joey Burns and 6-foot-2, 250-pound freshman Malcom Brown.

Midway through preseason workouts, there were three players competing to be the new starting quarterback. Kendrell Washington, Hall and Chase Wellbrock have been trying to fill the position where Brenham has featured passers more than runners in recent years. That includes Jarrett Lee, who is now at LSU.

"All of them have different strengths, and they're all still being looked at," West said. "Kendrell's been a quarterback his whole life, but he's never been in a situation to do it at the varsity level. He's different from what we've had back there, but he's a very athletic kid. He's got good speed."

Senior Keith Sanders should take over as the Cubs' primary running back. He will operate behind an offensive line with three starters in the 290-pound range, led by three-year starter Dayarion Broadnax and fellow senior Jacob Anderson at guards and Kip Maxwell at tackle.

"We're a very, very inexperienced football team," West said. "You don't get bogged down in that. You have to understand that while you're going to come out of the chutes a little rough as far as mistakes are concerned, you are going to improve tremendously through the season.

"We do have athletic ability. We have some big-play potential, and that is exciting. We are preaching to our players and to each other on the coaching staff that we've got to keep improving every day. If you improve a little bit every day, look where you are in a day, a week, a month."

Brenham will open the season by hosting Mayde Creek on Aug. 29.