Trending
When asked if he felt that his football team overachieved this season with six wins -- the most by a New Ulm Eagles football team since 2003 when they went 9-3 -- Eagles football head coach Derek Lieser said no.
"I don't think so," he said about his team that ended 6-4. "I think this was a group of guys that played up to their ability. But when you think about years past in getting to a winning record -- [it] was not happening on a regular basis. And when you take into consideration that we lost one of our best players (Ty Frederick) in the first game, I would call this a very successful season. We accomplished things that have not been done in a long time with the six wins and going 5-0 at home -- winning a home playoff game. There were a lot of milestones and achievements this year."
PLAYERS STEPPED UP
Lieser said with Frederick out both on offense and defense, he said juniors Sam Ibberson on defense and Preston Holberg along with Ian Brudelie on offense stepped up. "That was the only bright spot of Ty being out," Lieser said. "They got a lot of playing time which will help us for next season."
One player who stepped up this season was senior quarterback Ayden Jensen who had a banner season.
"We asked more of him this year not only in the running game but also in the passing game," Lieser said. "He had a phenomenal year -- he had over 25 touchdowns and between throwing and running, over 1,500 yards."
But Jensen will be hard to replace as right now Lieser has no one penciled in to take the keys to the Eagles' offense next season.
"That is a big question mark for us is who will be at quarterback," Lieser said. "We do have two freshmen quarterbacks who have the potential to be good football players down the road. But they are young and inexperienced."
New Ulm does return linemen Hunter Lewandowski, Cin'Anthony Johnson, Ibberson at tight end, and Holberg and Brudelie at running backs.
"Zach Hubbard had a good year as a sophomore wide receiver,"added Lieser.
This season of the Eagles four losses, three were to teams (Hutchinson, Marshall and Fairmont) who are still playing in their sections. Those three are currently a combined 23-5 on the season.
Can the football program at NUHS continue on an upswing?
"We told the kids that this a year to get the foundation laid for the culture and tradition that we want to establish," Lieser said. "We do not want this year to be a 'flash-in-the-pan' year. We are capable of doing good things, but that requires a lot of offseason work if we want to be at that playoff level. It is going to take a lot of work from the players and coaches. We want to use this year as fuel for next season -- we want this to be the norm and not the outlier."
CHARGERS BATTLE INJURIES ALL YEAR
If you followed the Minnesota Valley Lutheran Chargers this season, you know that for most of the season, their team resembled a MASH unit.
"We dealt with injuries one after the next," Chargers head coach Jim Buboltz said as MVL ended with a 4-6 record. "I have never seen this in my 24 years as head football coach. We lost two starters to injuries for the year before Week 1 even started and just going with that theme all year until the very end when we lost Kyler [Flunker] with an injury -- we lost 10 starters throughout the year."
And this was a Chargers team that came in with a lot of potential.
"We had a lot of hope and potential (3-0 start)," Buboltz said. "They had a great attitude and went to work. But it just was not to be this year."
But as the season progressed, Buboltz said that he learned that there are two types of football. "There is the finesse game that likes to throw the ball a lot, open it up here and there," he said. "And there is the power game of football. And my heart has always been with that power game. We used that my first 15 years here with that but my last 10 have been more of an open-up offense and put up big numbers -- watch the ball go flying around -- and that is all fun and such.
"But long-standing winning and especially this time of year in Minnesota has got to be done pounding the ball. Next season we are going back to that running game because the type of teams we are playing in Class 2A football now -- when we played Luverne, they threw the ball once in the game and Saturday at Jackson they threw the ball once in the second half. You've got to be prepared to have those kind of games because three of our last four games, the weather was not great for a team that likes to pass it."
Buboltz said he thinks his sophomore class has a very good group of linemen and players that like to hit.
"So I think that it is the right time to do that again," he said. "Big plays come and go but you cannot depend on big plays to be able to withstand drives to control the football and the clock. That is something that you can love in a hurry."
And the Chargers will be a young team next year.
"Against Maple River we had six sophomores, three juniors and two seniors on the field at the end," Buboltz said. "We can build on that."
This season the Chargers schedule -- especially the last five games with Luverne, Pipestone, Jackson County Central, Redwood Valley and Maple River -- was tough. It will be tough again as those same five teams dot the MVL schedule.
"We got a good idea of what it is going to be and it was eye-opening for everybody," Buboltz said. "That is only going to help us for next year."
The Chargers do return Kaden Peterson at quarterback and Ben Price at running back.
"But I had two sophomores in Caleb Hunter and Ethan Johnson on the line -- Caleb is back on the defensive side, too, and I was impressed by him coming off of a major knee surgery as a freshman. He led our team in tackles this year. So there are some pieces there to build on."
GREYHOUNDS COMPLETE FIRST NINE-MAN SEASON
New Ulm Cathedral football head coach Denny Lux thought the Greyhounds' first year in nine-man football went really well as they ended 6-3.
"When we look back and see the time that we spent in the summer at the University of Minnesota-Morris at camp -- and we walked away knowing that we had a lot of work to do," Lux said. "It seemed like it was going to be quite a hill-climb coming from that camp. We struggled so much, especially on defense.
"To come back and get started in August and start out the year like we did, I thought that it was a tremendous effort from our players and coaches. It really could not have gone much better for us."
Lux said that there were several adjustments that his players had to make in nine-man from the smaller width of the field to the passing game.
"That (passing game) changes, too, because the receivers get squeezed to the sidelines quite a bit. And on defense you are defending five of their skilled players."'
And the Greyhounds are also a young team that returns a good nucleus for next season.
"We had a lot of juniors playing -- the bulk of our team were juniors -- and most of them were first-year starters," Lux said. "Those younger guys did a super job. And we also got some nice players coming up from the B-squad. They did a lot of good things on that B-squad under coach Dave Wilfahrt. There are good things ahead of us."
Lux said that he and his coaches are going to take some time and look at the teams that they played and what really made them successful.
"I know that coach [Jesse] Nosbush on the defensive side and he is going to clue us in on what was really hard for those guys to defend," Lux said. "And we cannot be afraid to change. Coming into this year, the Wing-T was a good thing for us because it was new to the opponent but was familiar to us. But going forward, we learned a lot in our playoff game with Cedar Mountain. We got down (25-0) at halftime and we did not have anything in our tool box to really come back from that deficit and that is not fair to the kids.
"It is on offense now where we really do need to take a look what is going to keep us successful all year, not just in the regular season but into the playoffs and when you are looking at a team for the second time."