GLADWIN-- Last football season, the Gladwin Flying G’s brought home their first-ever football state title. Now, they have to figure out a way to maintain that momentum, while missing some of last year’s key seniors.
“The good news for us is we have most of our starting offensive line back, which is where we feel that everything is built around,” head coach Marc Jarstfer said. “That should be the strength of our team. We’re youthful. And replacing a lot of guys at the skill positions. We bring back two that have played a lot of time there on offense, but we’re excited about the guys that we have coming in behind them defensively, similar type of story, where we’re losing, you know, a lot of guys, but we’re feeling good about the guys that we have coming back. And then you will look to fill in with the youth just like everybody else has to do. And so, we return our outside linebackers, and then one player out of the secondary defensively and everybody else will be new faces.
Recently named team captain, Hunter McDowell, is confident that the returning starters are enough to help his team hit their stride.
“We got some guys who are returning and there they were big role players last year, I think just as much as the seniors and so we’re returning some pretty good guys,” he said. " It’s same thing with the seniors who played last year, are we going to step up and bringing the guys below us up? Are they gonna rise to us bringing them up? I think the opportunities are limitless.”
Gladwin will need to rise to the occasion game one this season, as they look to take on Ogemaw Heights at home.
“They’re just a really tough solid physical team who are returning multiple guys. And so, I think that is going to be, probably, my most looked forward to game because I think that’s gonna set the standard for our season ... like I said they’re a tough, strong, physical team and whether or not we’re going to come and outwork them is going to be kind of the start and standard for our whole season,” McDowell said.
The head coach and players agree that their other big matchups of the regular season will be against Pontiac’s Notre Dame Prep during week 7 and Frankenmuth, who they’ve just beaten in the most recent state championship game, in week 9.
“There’s no shortage of really good competition on our schedule. And that’s the way that we like it. You know, if you want to be the best you got to compete with the best teams around,” the head coach said.