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It's that time of year again.
Football season is up and rolling and I was able to start my rounds on Saturday at Eastern High School with the Eagles.
I've known second-year head coach Jason Jackson for quite a long time and he's never afraid to tell you how things are, whether it's good or not so good.
The EHS coaching staff was able to help the team to a 9-3 campaign last fall and a berth in the second round of the Buckeye State playoffs.
After spending some time at media day talking with coach Jackson as well as senior players Rylee Barrett and Brandon Oldaker, I get the feeling this season could be something special for the Eagles.
"All teams know that we are a run team," admitted Oldaker, the Eagles' right guard and middle linebacker who earned first team all-state as a junior.
He added of breaking in a new quarterback and getting the pass game going to complement the run game "we'll just see how the season goes out. We will be running the ball."
Barrett is coming off a near 1,400 yard rushing campaign and is anxious to get the regular season underway.
"Last year the offense and defense were all very new," Barrett said. "It was a very different scheme than what I was used to running. That was a big adjustment. We are a lot further ahead."
Coach Jackson couldn't agree with that more. In fact, it's not just with the Xs and Os.
"We are definitely ahead," said the coach. "I have to give thanks to our superintendent Nick Dettwiller. He allowed us to renovate our weight room. We have a pretty good weight room, but he allowed us to renovate that. We got it set up the way we wanted to. We had 43 guys in there pretty much all the time.
"We've lost a few guys the first week, but that weight room has helped this team tremendously. We had guys not just grow because they are young men and growing, but we had gains in strength this year that's just, and I've been coaching for 29 years, and there's been very few times I've seen this much growth out of a team in that short amount of time. Six or eight months and it definitely helped us."
Obviously, having talented players like Oldaker and Barrett will help any program, but two guys don't make a team.
However, coach Jackson is sure glad they are Eastern Eagles.
"Those are coaches players. They do whatever you ask them to do," Jackson said. "They don't question you. They don't look at you funny. They just run through that brick wall as hard as they can and then they will turn around and say do you want me to run through it again, and before you can say yes they've already run back through it again. That's the type of kids they are. Old school and they match my thinking.
"You know, I've got Fred Taylor and Dick Sturm thought processes. You know, old school. This is what we are going to do and there is no questions asked. They fit right into that. Just happy for those two kids. They've been playing football together since they were little. I love watching those two produce. I know it's an offensive game, but I love seeing them produce on defense."
After losing to Waterford in the regular season and having the rival Wildcats end their campaign in the playoffs, motivation in the offseason wasn't hard to come by.
"These kids, we worked all offseason with this quote -- bad teams no one leads, good teams the coaches lead and great teams the players lead. Last year being a new staff we were doing a lot of the leading, basically 90 percent. We had a couple great seniors in Brady Yonker and Landon Randolph. They were great leaders, but none of the other team led. We had a very young team.
"When you have two senior starters and I think seven starting sophomores, you are not going to have a lot of leadership. We worked and worked on that in the summer and the kids believed in that. So far these guys believe everything we try to teach to them and that tells me they've been raised right. We've got a lot of great support from the parents here and the support from the community and the school. It's a great place to be and it's really awesome to see how much these kids have developed."
Eastern will begin its campaign two weeks from Friday when River Valley invades East Shade River Stadium.
Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com