Caledonia won 10 games and a district championship last fall in Derek Pennington's first season as head coach of the Fighting Scots.
"Last year was a great year, but we had a long talk with our kids, last year's success has nothing to do with this year," Pennington said. "We have different chemistry, we lost some really good seniors. We lost six seniors, I believe, that are playing college football on defense. We have some huge replacements on defense. Then we lost two really good offensive linemen with Andrew DeVries and Caleb Paarlberg. So, there's spots to fill. This is a different team, obviously we return a lot of skill."
Those returning skill players include senior quarterback Mason McKenzie and junior running back Brock Townsend, who will both be in their third year as varsity starters.
"I'm just excited to get out there, I'm going to be honest with you," Townsend said with a big smile on his face. "It feels like forever since we've been out there. I'm ready to just play, go hit people and I don't know. I think this season I feel different, I feel ready to go. I feel like our team has been getting after in practice and I think it we will do good this year."
The community support the football team receives is outstanding and the players appreciate it.
"It's great to have people supporting us, it makes a lot more fun when there's a lot of people out there cheering for you and you're always going to expect to see a big crowd out there, so it makes it a lot more motivating for us as a team," McKenzie said. "We really want to go out and show everybody what we can do."
The Fighting Scots' first game is home next Thursday, August 26th against Holt.
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