Linesmen Luis Lopez, Senior, and Jonathan Sheet, Junior, are hopeful summer team workouts, bonding activities and depth lead to wins.
Sheets feels the team bonds most when they are pushing each other past the exhaustion during workouts.
“Specially the conditioning when everyone gets tired together you slowly begin to bond with one another because you feel like you need to motivate the person next to you and you have to do it for the person next to you not just yourself,” Sheets said.
Sheets also said the intensity of the workouts leading up to the season-opener give little room for the players to socialize, but they take advantage of the breaks between sets to get to know their teammates and find out who they are outside of the field.
The team also had the opportunity to enjoy themselves outside of football when coach Tony Holmes prepared a barbeque for Varsity and JV.
“We had an hour and a half, two hours to bond with each other. He also let us go swimming to have a little bit of fun,” Lopez said.
Lopez continued to say that it was a great experience for the team to socialize in a different environment rather than always doing it when they are trying to kill each other in practice.
Sheets already sees the benefit of the time spent with his teammates on and off the field.
“It helps us understand how each other will react to a certain situation on the field,” Sheets said. “Just knowing the guy next to you well enough to know what he’s probably going to do will help you make a decision on how you should react.”
Sheets and Lopez are two of 16 returning players that will take on the field starting August 25 to face Christopher High School.
“It’s mostly the same, but there are a few new players that we’ve put in and they are doing the best job we can ask for,” Sheets said.
Having gone through two 2-8 seasons, Lopez believes the team is ready for the challenge ahead.
“I think the difference this season is that everyone is ready. Everyone has the attitude that they want to put up 110%,” Lopez said.
Depth deficit in previous years, ironically, should help the lines be successful this season.
Multiple players had to play on both sides of the ball last season and know the responsibilities of different positions. Now that only a few will be asked of that responsibility, Lopez among them, the players can focus on their specialty while also knowing how and where the teammates will be positioned.
Even with more depth, coach Holmes isn’t changing his strategy.
“He is preparing everyone to go both ways no matter what,” Lopez said. “Coach expects everyone in the line to learn different positions just in case one of us gets hurt.”
The experience returning linesmen bring to the team along with the depth puts the Bulldogs football team a step ahead of where they were last year.
