TOWNSEND — The Townsend football team knows what it takes to win championships, getting the job done in 2014.
As the guys take the field this season, there are a few similarities surfacing between this pack of Bulldogs and the championship squad of four years ago.
“I would say attitude and leadership,” said head coach Travis Rauh. “This is probably the best leadership we’ve had, probably since 2014. So I am very, very pleased with how they, how our seniors have come out and really gotten everybody to always compete at a high level at practice.”
“It’s phenomenal what the younger kids have done,” senior Jace Reddick said. “They’re stepping up a lot and the older kids are showing them the way. And the older kids are getting better in the process, so I think it’s working out. It’s a really good process we got going.”
“We’ve all been there, coming in as freshmen, scared,” said senior Kameron Rauser. “We just got to pick them up and show them that you guys can play, too — you just can’t be scared.”
There should be no fear up front. If team leadership is the Bulldogs’ biggest asset this season, their second building block is the offensive line, which is another parallel to the 2014 team.
“I feel we’ll be a lot more assignment-sound up front with our offensive line, and that was one thing that was very crucial for us,” said Rauh. “We were able to do so many things offensively that year because of how much experience we had on the O-line. We’re hoping to be kind of back in that same situation, where we’re a lot more diverse on offense because we can block a lot of different things.”
The third thing the Bulldogs have going for them this season: The players like each other.
“We’re all friends. We’re together all the time, always hanging out, always talking, always SnapChatting, always texting,” Rauser said.
“We’re in such a small school, and we all know each other and we’ve all at least hung out with each other at least once,” said Reddick. “Off the field, on the field, we just all know each other, we know our personalities, we know what we’re going to do every play.”
