(Audubon) After finishing as the state runner-up last year the Auduubon football team will be working to maintain the high level of play despite some huge losses to graduation.
The Wheelers bring back some talented pieces, but have some big holes to fill as well. Coach Sean Birks reports, “There’s some new faces in some new spots, but the program has high goals every year no matter who we are replacing. We’ve been through this the last 6-7-8 years now. We have some good teams and big classes, but then the class behind them wants to one-up them so to speak. The challenge is to keep that bar elevated, but it won’t be an easy task.”
Even though they graduated a lot of star power, this group has the potential to be really good. “Something I told the guys already after camp is this has the chance to be our deepest team, our biggest team, and our smartest team. We have a lot of high IQ kids. There’s about fifteen kids right now that I trust to rotate in and we are pretty big. Up front there’s a chance we could average about 225 pounds on the offensive line.”
Junior quarterback Gavin Smith has seen spot duty as a freshman and sophomore. “Gavin is going to be the key to what we need to do this year. He’s so athletic and so smart. He works really hard and has been a weight room kid from day one in junior high. He’s been picking up on the concepts and we’ve worked him in there a little bit as a freshman and sophomore. He has some good options around him and he can throw it pretty well and he can run it pretty well so we’re really lucky.”
Smith will be surrounded by returning players Ethan Klocke and Joel Klocke who each bring a lot to the table. “We can put them both in the backfield, we can split them both out because they catch the ball well. They are both high IQ guys too and know where to line up in all the various spots. They are kids that have the most experience which we need to lean on because we have a pretty small senior class this year. They do a great job for us.”
Audubon begins the season on August 28th at home against Exira-EHK. We’ll have the broadcast on KSOM.
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