Fairfield (WSIL) -- The high school football season is right around the corner.
Teams are working out during the summer.
Fairfield is expected to be good once again.
They lost key seniors but the Mules don't seem to rebuild, they reload.
"As a coach you lose those valuable seniors and you're sitting in your office and you're wondering who's going to step up, who's going to replace those guys and those are the things you always worry about as a coach. That's one that sticks out in my mind. What's nice and we've been able to do it every year is that first week of practice ok there's a senior stepping up, there's a senior stepping up, those spots are filled already."
The Mules graduated a leader in quaterback Landon Zurliene. A big question this summer is who is ready to take over the reigns.
"We've been blessed over the last few years to have athletes at quarterback and moving forward I don't think it's going to be any different for us. Eric Rodgersis one of our best athletes in our school and he'll be one of our best players this year as a junior. He'll take the reigns at quarterback and we've got some good younger guys behind him so I think we'll continue to be good at that position."
New Quarterback but the Mules believe they are strong in the trenches, on both sides of the ball.
We return a lot of quality guys up front. Offensively on the line, we return four starters. Defensive line wise we return four starters so everybody has really talked about our skilled guys and our quarterbacks that we may be missing but we return a big part of our guys up front and I'm really excited about that this year.
The depth chart is filling out and the work is being put in during the summer.
Summer practices are different this year. It was just two and a half months ago the Mules were playing games. Guys are still in playing shape.
"We're real big in the weight room, and speed work prior to July fourth. I really, we really don't get the football out much but once July fourth hits, you get back, for me, it's here.
"I'm excited to practice every day. Excited to work hard."
"I start to get a little excited and we kind of build. We go helmets, we go helmets shoulder pads and that last week is a lot like practice for us and we start game planning for our week one opponent so it's almost here. The kids are already locked in."
"For sure I think we are all bought in, ready to have a great season and surpass what we've done before and make a deep playoff run."
"I think it's an advantage. Everybody is hyped up from last football season and we don't want a break. We want to keep playing. and we love football so much we just want to keep on going."
"We have a very good senior group and we have a lot of numbers in our senior group and I think that is a huge advantage for us. So we feel those guys are already up to speed.
"It felt like for the younger guys it really helped because we really didn't skip a beat, we're back in and everybody seems to be rolling really well."
Fairfield went 6-0 in the spring. The graduating seniors never lost a conference game. The 2022 class has never lost a Black DIamond game either. Don't plan on starting now.
"We have big target on our shoulders every week and everybody wants to be the team that breaks that streak but our seniors have embraced that and they preached that to our younger guys that we want to keep that going as long as possible."
"Yeah we for sure embrace it and we don't plan on anything changing so we are ready to continue it and hopefully the juniors behind us continue it too."
"I think we feel pressure but we are excited for it because we know once we win all those games and continue the streak, it's going to be even sweeter."
