A young Swift Current Comp. Colts football team is looking to grow up quickly in the Moose Jaw High School Football League this season.
“We have kind of a younger team this year,” explained grade 12 linebacker Josh Keller. “We are looking to coach those guys up and help them grow obviously this year because it’s kind of a growing year for some of our linebackers especially. I am the only veteran this year, so I am going to try and do my best this year to coach and help the linebackers with different plays and such.”
“I have been really excited,” said veteran head coach Derek Murdoch. “We graduated 19 guys and we want to get to a point where we always graduate a big group of grade 12s, but you know that you are replacing them with grade 10s. We are never probably going to replace some of those guys that we lost, but the grade 10s have come in and jumped right in and been awesome. The grade 12s have stepped up and you can tell they are excited about being the guy. We’ve had a really good week so far. Everybody has been here and it has been hot and we’re working hard. We’ve got lots done and we still have lots to do.”
The Colts ran their way to a 5-1 record in the regular season in 2016 and then advanced to the league final before losing to Moose Jaw AE Peacock. The Colts will open the six-game regular season on Saturday in Weyburn.
Weyburn finished with a 2-4 record last season and then were quickly eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. The Colts ran over the Eagles in a 38-0 win last October.
“We just go in the same way we go into any game, don’t overlook them obviously. But we just need to play our game basically,” said Keller.
“Lots of people always ask, ‘How are you going to do?’ You just don’t know until you get on the field with somebody else,” added Murdoch. “We expect that they are a very traditional football team. They do things very well. They are not super exotic in terms of how they run their offense or defense. They are going to be ready for us because we have beat them the last two years. We are going to go down there and we are going to be pretty straightforward and basic as well. We have to learn to walk before we can run as well.
Keller believes that his team will be in the mix in the Moose Jaw league this season.
“Yeah of course,” said Keller. “We have a lot of talent, a lot of fast kids, a lot of smart guys that adjust well. Most of our guys they move around. We have a lot of our guys that came from D-line and are playing linebacker now and they are adjusting very well.”
The Colts will play their first home game next Thursday under the lights against Moose Jaw Central at 7 p.m.
