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The 136th year of high school football in Minnesota starts this Thursday locally with the Minnesota Valley Lutheran Chargers and the New Ulm Cathedral Greyhounds opening with 7 p.m. kickoffs at Minneota and Red Rock Central, respectively.
On Friday, the New Ulm Eagles hit the road for a nonconference contest against Big Nine Conference opponent Austin, with a 7 p.m. kickoff.
MVL MARCHES TO MINNEOTA
The Chargers meet the 11-time state champion Vikings in what Minneota head football coach Chad Johnston said is veteran in some skilled positions.
"But we lost a lot on our offensive line," he said. "We graduated our tight end -- we graduated four of our five offensive linemen -- we had a pretty good senior class last year."
But the Class A Vikings -- who have gone 40-0 in their last three seasons -- do have skilled players back.
"Both of our receivers are back as is our quarterback Tristen Sussner," said Johnston. "We have been a team in the past who has has strived for balance -- we are never 50/50, but we want to be able to mix it up quite a bit.
"But the last three years we have been pretty run-heavy because we have had really good running backs. But with the talent that we have at the receiver and quarterback we expect to throw the ball more this year. But that is going to be dependant on how our offensive line picks up on things."
Johnston said that he has some concerns about his offensive line in their first game.
"I am a little concerned because we have a lot of young kids -- we only have one senior offensive lineman and two juniors so we have two sophomores who have to step up and fill those roles but they are inexperienced."
He said in the first game he wants to see how both of his lines control the line of scrimmage.
"That is going to be key for us because on defense -- which was good against the run last year -- we lost six of our eight interior linemen so that is where we have to step up. How well do our younger kids play."
Chargers head coach Jim Buboltz said that last year when MVL hosted Minneota, his team played a good quarter and a half at the start of the game.
"They made some adjustments that picked out some things with our defense," he said. "The big thing Thursday for us is to maintain the ball offensively -- get first downs and take care of the ball -- but maintain it and not get into a scoring game with them. Work some clock and maybe our best defense can be keeping their offense off of the field."
Buboltz said that the Chargers ground game is going to be the whole year.
"We need to maintain the ball -- take care of the ball and ground the ball and pound the ball -- anything that we do like that on the offensive side benefits the defense."
Like Johnston and Minneota, Buboltz believes that his offensive line needs to compete at a high level.
"They need to open up just slivers for our backs and give them a chance to put their foot in the ground and get north and south -- that is the group that I am going to focus on the most and put a lot of weight on that group to lead us."
Buboltz wants to make sure that his defense has correct reads in the first game.
"Are we doing our assignments correctly and reacting to the ball and get a lot of hats on the ball," Buboltz said.
"We are taking on a three-time state champion at their place. We need to pound the ball and keep their offense off of the field is the best thing we can do to get points, but also compete at a high level."
CATHEDRAL TREKS TO LAMBERTON
RRC Falcons head football coach Isaac Jenniges said that Red Rock Central returns five or six players who played in some capacity.
"But we did lose seven seniors who played all of the time," he said, "We are still going to be team that runs the ball -- we hang our hat on running the ball -- that is the kind of style of ball that we play."
The Falcons will see a new quarterback running the offense in sophomore Braxton Weber.
"And we have a few guys back on the offensive iine but we also have a few new players there too," Jenniges said. "I hope that we can come out and establish some form of physical presence on both lines. But we know that in the first game of the year especially with new players that we are going to take some lumps, but we need to find a way to be in the game in the fourth quarter and have a chance to win.
"You can have so many factors in the first game of the year that can play into it. So unless you have that very experienced team like we had last year (10-1) that first game is a flip of the coin."
RRC will also be without its record-setting running back Carter Therkilsen, who graduated this past spring and will be playing for the Saint John’s University football team this fall.
Cathedral head coach Denny Lux feels that Red Rock will disciplined, aggressive and physical.
"These are things that because these are things that they have been used to doing," he said. "Both teams have new players on the field so you are not quite sure what to expect formation and play-wise. We return a number of players, but we also have a couple of players in new varsity spots like Ryler Collins. [He] is a junior who will be playing corner and some receiver and we have sophomore Blake Aufderheide, who will be playing some fullback and back-up linebacker."
Lux said that sophomores Hudson Lieser and Will Finstad could see playing time.
"We have Lane Ruch up on the line now and Evan Blekestedt is more of a running back this year -- last year he was more of a tight end," Lux said.
"We have really reduced the number of plays -- we just need the guys to come out and play with confidence and use their speed and athletic ability -- most of these guys are two or three-sport athletes.
"So we just decided offensively to not bulk ourselves down with a lot of plays -- we have a few formations but the plays are limited and that is what we feel the best about going into the season."
EAGLES TRAVEL TO AUSTIN
Last year the Eagles opened their season with a 44-7 home win over the Austin Packers.
"The biggest thing we are looking forward to to open the year is to come out and execute at a high level, minimize mistakes on our end and go out and play four quarters of clean football," New Ulm Eagles head coach Derek Lieser said. "Be fast, be physical and have a lot of fun."'
Lieser said that in last year's meeting, the Eagles were able to get out to a pretty comfortable lead early.
"And so we were limited in what we could call," he said. "This year we are hoping that we can utilize more of our playbook to get a feel on how things look. We want to be simple but maybe we can expand our playbook more."
Last season, Zach Hubbard was the key offensively for the Eagles, but this year Lieser is looking to have six to seven players involved offensively.
"We want kids going into Week 2 to be more comfortable with all of the plays." he said. "We will not be operating at full capacity on Friday and using 100 percent of the playbook, but our hope is that we can use more and expose our kids to and see what it looks like in a game-style scenario.
"We want to be the more physical team on both sides of the line and can we take that step forward from last year. At times it looked like we took a step forward in our scrimmage and then there were times when we made those same kind of mistakes. But we want to move forward."
Lieser said that getting a Week 1 win will be big for the rest of the year.
"The first-game performance can set the tone for the year, so we want to get off on the right foot Friday and we have to be ready from the get-go," Lieser said.