Saints answering the call: Coeur du Christ Academy, in just its second year with a football program, gears up for first state playoff game

By MARK NELKE

Sports editor

There was that first season, where the Coeur du Christ football team practiced on a grassy area behind a school, or in a city park, with cones set out to mark boundaries. 

There was the time the Saints were about to wrap up their first win in program history — but not everyone on the field knew how to execute the victory formation. 

There was the time somebody mentioned the line of scrimmage — and a few kids didn’t know what that meant. 

Those are things that can be laughed about now. 

But what’s no laughing matter these days is the Coeur du Christ Saints, in only their second year as a program, are headed to the state football playoffs this weekend. 

The fourth-seeded Saints (7-1) will play host to fifth-seeded and defending champion Carey (8-1) in a state 1A quarterfinal game Saturday at 1 p.m. at the Marimn Health Coeur Center in Worley. 

"Thinking back on it, it might be funny, but it’s what got us here now,” Coeur du Christ senior wide receiver/linebacker Greg Hayes said. 

“So considering where we’ve gone from there is quite extraordinary,” Saints sophomore quarterback/defensive back Grant Clemens said. 

Coeur du Christ, a school in downtown Coeur d’Alene for boys and girls in grades 9-12, is a true class 1A school based on enrollment, and earned an automatic bid to the playoffs by winning the North Star League.  

The Saints prevailed in a league where the other three schools — Lakeside, Wallace and Clark Fork — are 2A schools who successfully petitioned to play down in 1A (Idaho’s smallest-school classification) in football last year and this year. 

And Coeur du Christ’s MaxPreps ranking earned the Saints a bye in the first round last weekend. 

“Having the home game is really special,” said head coach Kellen Clemens, the former Oregon and NFL quarterback who started the Saints program last year. “I’m excited for our fans to have the opportunity to experience that. Excited for these boys to have the opportunity to experience that. I’ve tried to communicate to them that the playoffs are different; the intensity, the speed, everything kind of ramps up a little bit. 

“But again, that’s a result of these young men going away and working,” added Clemens, who is also the school’s athletic director. “We ask a fair amount of them, whether that’s some film work, or attendance at some of the offseason workouts, and they’ve really answered the call.” 

At COEUR du Christ’s first football practice, in the early morning in early August 2024 at Holy Family Catholic School in Coeur d’Alene, only three players had ever put on football pads before — Grant Clemens, who had played one year of Junior Tackle and a couple of years of flag football; Jon Denke, now a junior running back/linebacker, who had played eight-man and 11-man tackle football; and Eli Zember, sophomore tight end/linebacker this year. 

In its first game as a program, Coeur du Christ scored 32 points against Lakeside, a respectable showing in a 22-point loss. 

The Saints dropped their first three games before winning 54-26 at Clark Fork, and finished the season 3-5, 3-3 in the North Star League. 

"Honestly, in the very beginning, I had confidence in my team,” Denke said. “Last year we grew a ton, exponentially. This year I was very happy what I saw in the morning practices. I don’t know; I was very confident in my team.” 

Why? 

“Everybody showed up during the summer training,” Denke said. “They were determined, and they wanted to play. Just determination in general will give you confidence, I knew these people were going to study their playbooks, they were going to practice outside of practice. I knew that they wanted to play football, and they wanted to win games.” 

This year, Coeur du Christ started out 3-0 before suffering its only loss, 48-12 at Logos of Moscow, a team which is in the state 2A playoffs. 

The Saints then won all three league games — vs. Lakeside, Wallace and Clark Fork, the aforementioned 2A schools playing down a level. 

“There's a lot of players that have put in a lot of work,” Kellen Clemens said. “From last year, where we started with one player that had played high school football, to this year being able to have a lot of success. There’s a lot of these players, a lot of these coaches that have put in a lot of work to get here. And fortunately, we’re seeing a lot of the fruits of those efforts this year.”

THE 5-foot-9, 160-pound Denke is the “heart and soul” of the team, Kellen Clemens said. 

“He’s obviously a heckuva player,” Clemens said of Denke, who this season has rushed for 882 yards and 15 touchdowns on 56 carries, and has 75 total tackles, including three sacks, and three forced fumbles. “Defensively it’s about funneling everything into 42. He’s got the speed to attack a defense sideline to sideline, but he’s also an aggressive tackler. Also spiritually, he’s really led this team in a way that I could not be more excited about how he’s elevated his teammates across the board. When you’re at a school that is trying to teach the things that we teach, he’s done a phenomenal job for us, and I’m glad to get him back for another year next year.” 

Grant Clemens (6-1, 150), the coach’s son and the starting quarterback since Day 1 as a freshman, has thrown for 1,739 yards (87 for 136) and 26 touchdowns, with three interceptions. 

“He’s done a really good job of going away and working,” Kellen Clemens said. “He can throw it, but that’s not genetic; that’s because he works at it. There’s a lot of times he said ‘Dad, I want to work on this,’ and we’ll go spend some time working on some of the smaller details of playing the position.  

“It’s also helpful, if I have a thought as a play-caller, I don’t have to wait until practice to tell my starting quarterback what I’m thinking. And I ask a lot of him on game day. And for just a sophomore, he’s really done a spectacular job this year of taking some of the things I want to do and translating them, so his teammates can be on the same page. He does a really good job of leading that huddle.”  

Hayes (5-10, 165), who had never played organized football until last year, has 24 catches for 789 yards and 11 touchdowns this season. 

“He knew football last year, but hadn’t played, and really started to come on toward the end of the year,” Kellen Clemens said. “But where Greg really took some big steps were, setting a goal, and then making the sacrifices necessary to achieve that goal.  

“I have an inside look at it, because of who lives in my home, but there were a lot of nights over the summer where Grant would get a text at 7 o’clock and it’s Greg — 'Hey, let’s go to the park and let’s go play.’ And they would go and they would just work. They would have fun with it, but they would put in 45 minutes to an hour. Those are the times when chemistry is developed. Those are the things that are special.  

“I tell these boys, every team in the state is practicing Monday through Thursday. The bare minimum is just to show up to practice. But if you want to gain an advantage, and in our case coming out of last year when we were behind, if we want to catch up and maybe move ahead of some of these teams, they have to be willing to put in the work outside of what everybody else is doing. I think that’s been the biggest difference is that these young men have done that.” 

BACK TO that first win, 54-26 in 2024, at Clark Fork. Grant Clemens missed the game with an injury, so Hayes played quarterback.  

“We were supposed to kneel to run out the clock, and a lot of us didn’t know what that was at first,” recalled Clemens, who was there on the sidelines supporting his team. “Coach was yelling at us from the sidelines, ‘Get in the V, Get in the V; quarterback, take a knee.’ We forgot to go over the victory formation (in practice).” 

Eventually Hayes took the snap in shotgun formation and kneeled — and a few other Saints players took a knee as well. 

“I’d seen it on TV and stuff, so I kinda understood what it was supposed to be,” Hayes said. “To be honest, I didn’t notice what the other players were doing because I was focused on getting the snap and kneeling. But thinking back, it’s just funny that a little basic thing like that, we messed up.” 

Kellen Clemens recalled another game early last season. 

"We had a situation where we were on defense, and a running back fumbled, and we just looked at it.” Kellen said. “Didn’t know what to do. We were kind of confused, and then of course they got on it before we did.” 

“There were different learning curves for everybody,” he added. 

LAST YEAR, most of Coeur du Christ’s practices were held at a public park in Hayden. 

This year, Bob Fitzgerald and Coeur d’Alene Junior Tackle offered the Saints the use of Person Field for practice, for which Clemens said he is “very grateful.” 

“The ability to have a legit field to be out on has made a significant difference this year,” Clemens said. 

He said it’s “a little bit nostalgic” that Coeur du Christ, described by Clemens as “a private school in the Catholic tradition,” practices on the same field where Immaculate Heart of Mary Academy, a Catholic school in Coeur d’Alene which closed in 1971, once played its home games more than a half-century ago. 

Last year at the park ... 

“We would just throw out cones, mark off about 40 yards worth of field, maybe an end zone if we were doing goal line that day, and make the most of it,” Clemens said. “But when you’ve got goal posts for the visual, and obviously lines that have been professionally painted, it makes a big difference. When you’re doing red zone work, and having that visual of where the back line is, it does make a difference.” 

Also making a diffference is having a head coach with NFL experience, along with depth in assistants — Scott Luft (defensive coordinator/linebackers/wide receivers/kicking coach), Eric Kenner (special teams (assistant offensive line/head trainer), Nick Roach (offensive line/defensive line) and Jesse Anderson (tight ends/defensive line/assistant trainer). 

“It’s meant everything,” Hayes said of the coaching staff. 

“Every single one of them, they sacrifice so much time for us, and they make us better,” Denke said. 

THIS YEAR, eight of the 14 players from last year’s squad, including many of the key skill-position players, returned.  

This year’s 21-member roster includes 13 newcomers, including sophomore wide receiver/defensive back Beckett Beyer (23 catches, 350 yards, seven touchdowns, and a team-high five interceptions), and five freshmen. 

"We’ve had more players that have come out,” Kellen Clemens said. “The players that we had last year that returned went away and worked hard. We had new players that came in — five freshmen that are helping. A couple people moved to town; Beckett Beyer was a great addition to the team. 

“But the biggest thing was. just guys working. We returned most of the core nucleus of what was here last year, and they went away and worked. Credit to these kids, they went away and they worked.” 

    MARK NELKE/Press Coeur du Christ senior wide receiver/defensive back Greg Hayes.

    MARK NELKE/Press Coeur du Christ junior running back/linebacker Jon Denke.

    MARK NELKE/Press Coeur du Christ football coach Kellen Clemens provides instruction at a Saints practice Tuesday at Person Field in Coeur d'Alene.