Now that we're well in to August, and with school already commencing in many places, I may be the bringer of less than pleasing news. Sorry to burst any bubbles but we're reach Fall gentlemen & ladies. My advice is that the best thing to do is still to look for ways to take full advantage of the great weather that we get while it remains. Because it's not going to be too long and everything will be that shade of pure again...and cold. Between then and now though, Fall will bring the array of colored leaves on the trees and in the grass, the cooler temperatures and FOOTBALL.
Some people wait all year for that last one and that is why you're reading this so with that in mind, I present to you this year's Forewords to Football.
A special thank you to coach Troy Mattern for taking the time to answer my questions!
As you've thought back on last season, is there a memory or two that really stands out as the highlight(s), including but not limited to the title perhaps?
Last year was a great year beyond the state championship. I really feel as a program we took a great step forward in becoming more competitive in how we do things. We have more kids in our program competing for spots and it makes our practices better. We have a lot of kids that have bought in the training associated with football and continually are working harder to get bigger, faster and stronger. This state championship I hope will catapult us into AAA with success.
Who are some of the players that you think will have to step up to fill the voids created by graduates?
We return a lot of kids, that played a lot of minutes last fall, namely on our offensive and defensive lines. With starters, Joe Kava, Evan Bubach, Luke Beiswenger, Leo Hanson, and Brayden Bloch back, and adding Simon Bowden who missed last year with an ACL, our line will have a lot of depth. We also return all state receiver Talon Hoffer, as well as starters Henry Collins and Braden Dekeyser at WR.
Do you have any plans to take your team to a Football camp over the next months?
Within our program, we have a very strong belief that games are won in the summer. Our coaches are very active with our kids both in the weight room and on the field. We do a lot of in house things football wise as well as attending many camps and 7 on 7 tournaments.
Do you think your players will be ready for the jump up to AAA in game 1?
I think to our kids and coaches, nothing will change in the way we prepare for a season. Most of our coaching staff was at Fargo South with me so we have always run a AAA program. For the kids, they compete with all these schools in every sport so they are welcoming the chance to do that in football as well
About the overall roster that you will be fielding, is there a position or two that you think will be your team's strength come the Fall?
Like I said above, our strength will be on our lines as we return a lot of kids with good game experience and they are big and strong kids. We are also excited with our overall speed which a lot of those kids were the ones that help get 2nd in EDC track this spring.
I'm not looking for any specific plans that you may have devised but just some information on your perspective & your roster.
I'm excited to see how our junior class develops. They had a great JV season last year and we expect big things from this class. In particular, QB will be Cooper Mattern, on how he steps up and runs a varsity offense. In addition to that are the running backs in Carson Dean and Carter Kochmann. We have had so much depth at RB the last couple years that they didn't need to play varsity so now it is their time to shine. I'm excited to see what they can do.
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