Father and son at the center of the revitalization of Nauset High football
Nauset head football coach Jesse Peno talks with his QB son, Brendan during practice at the high school in North Eastham. (Ron Schloerb/Cape Cod Times).
In recent years, wins have been hard to come by for the Nauset High football team.
Since 2014, the Warriors have a 21-55 record, including a winless season last fall. Nauset has had two seasons with a record of .500 or better during that stretch.
Coming into this season, the Warriors needed something different, but also a little familiar.
Well, have no fear, the Penos are here.
The Peno family has made an immediate impact on the program. Brendan is flashing as a starting quarterback despite only being a freshman. His dad, Jesse, is doing a fine job as a first-year head coach. Led by that family, the Warriors are off to a 4-2 start.
“I think it’s pretty cool to have my dad as the coach,” Brendan Peno said. “We can have conversations on the sideline when we’re picking a play. It’s easier to talk to him than if it was some random coach. It’s a lot easier to go over stuff with him.”
Coach Peno spoke of his dual role.
“It’s really fun at times. It’s that different dynamic of when we’re on the field, it’s coach/player,” Coach Peno said. “The car ride home, we don’t talk a lot of football. We kind of transition back to father and son."
Nauset head football coach Jesse Peno talks with his QB son, Brendan during practice at the high school in North Eastham. (Ron Schloerb/Cape Cod Times).
Coach Peno’s new position at the helm is coming full circle. In addition to being the former defensive coordinator under Mike Sherman’s staff at Nauset (the former head coach of the Green Bay Packers), he also spent some time on the field like his son.
Jesse Peno was on Nauset's first football team in the late 1990s.
“When the opportunity came to come back and coach the team that I played for that really started my career, I knew it was something I wanted to do,” Coach Peno said.
Coming into this season, the elder Peno knew it would be a challenge after last year's record. Despite that, he knew this was the time to try to turn things around.
Nauset head football coach Jesse Peno with his QB son, Brendan during practice at the high school in North Eastham. (Ron Schloerb/Cape Cod Times).
“We’re wiping the slate clean, starting fresh and building from the ground up,” Jesse Peno said. “I knew our numbers would be up a little bit. We had some good players come back.”
In the first game of the season, Nauset was shut out by Norwell, 27-0, on the road. The result turned out to be merely a speed bump instead of a roadblock.
“I think the stage got to us a little bit. We were a little amped up,” Jesse Peno said. “We have to learn how to win, and as we've been going, we have been maturing as a team. We have some good senior leadership.”
Since that loss, Nauset has won four of their last five games. Their only loss was by one point to a 4-1 Falmouth team.
“It's just a team effort of not giving up.” Brendan Peno said. “We were down by 14 in the second quarter of the North Middlesex game and we came back and won by double digits. Against Falmouth, we were down by two touchdowns and we came back and almost won it. A couple of years ago, you asked a couple of guys if we’re down by two touchdowns to Falmouth, we’re not coming back. Now, the culture has changed and we feel like every game we play, we’re in it.”
Brendan Peno is a freshman quarterback
As a freshman quarterback, some players may be nervous with a big role like that at a young age. Not Brendan Peno. Since that shutout loss in Week 1, he's thrown nine touchdowns and rushed for two more.
“To be honest, I didn’t handle (the pressure of being the quarterback) too well,” Brendan Peno said. “That first quarter against Falmouth, not a great start. First game against Norwell, not a great start. I just have not been getting in my own head. Ever since that end of the second quarter against Falmouth, I feel like I’ve been able to play more like myself. Just not thinking before the play, just going.”
Coach Peno said that the level Brendan Peno has been playing at has been surprising to everybody for a 14-year-old.
“As a father, you look and say ‘I knew he had it in him as I hoped he would.’ He has been huge and pivotal,” coach Peno said. “It’s just fun to coach him and see the success he’s having. It coincides with the team’s success. He’s just a piece of that. Like everyone else, he buys into what we’re doing.”
Coach Peno said that Brendan’s best skill is knowing when a play is breaking down.
“He can move outside the pocket. He just has pretty good football awareness,” Jesse Peno said. “He can run the plays in the pocket. When we ask him to carry the ball he does. He’s starting to step up in terms of, if something’s not there, making something happen. He has that sense of hanging in there and making something out of nothing, but kind of managing it at the same time.”
Turning this season around after a winless 2021 season
In Nauset's four wins, the Warriors are averaging 32 points per game while surrendering just 13. As of Oct. 18, Nauset is ranked No. 22 in the Div. 4 power rankings. The top 16 teams with at least three wins qualify.
How has this team gone from no wins last season to four midway through the season?
“They want success so bad,” Coach Peno said. “Coming off a year when they didn’t have any wins, the majority of the team was coming back. I knew that they were just ready to get that win and ready to have some success. That’s really been the key.”
Nauset's next game is against a Sandwich team that is 4-2 and on a three-game win streak. The game after that is against a Carver team that is ranked No. 10 in the Div. 8 MIAA Power Rankings. Both those games will provide chances to move up in the Div. 4 rankings.
“We can’t look back and we can’t look ahead,” Coach Peno said. “There’s a lot of things outside of our control. We can control our effort, our attitude, our execution. Our goal is to go 1-0 every week. Everything else will take care of itself. We just need to focus on this week and what we’re doing today in the present, because there's nothing we can do about the past and we can’t predict the future. We just have to live in the moment.”
