Following a productive pre-season, the football team is setting big goals as they charge into the season.

After starting workouts in January, Coach Ryan Stringer said the team is in a “pretty good space” heading into their first scrimmage tonight.

“We’ve been pretty much full go since May,” Stringer said.

Though the team lost 21 seniors following last school year, Stringer believes that sophomore and junior talent will replace the team’s missing pieces.

“A lot of those guys are going to fill holes and be starters full time this year where they kind of helped fill in spots last year,” Stringer said.

He added that the team was optimistic about its emerging senior leadership.

“I’m excited to kind of see the growth of those seniors from their junior to senior year and some steps that they take,” Stringer said.

As a senior leader of the team, Defensive End Aiden Monigold said he has noticed a positive change in the team with less of a split between grade levels. Monigold began his time at McGuinness in 2023 after transferring his sophomore year.

“It’s changed in a good way,” Monigold said. “Nobody’s discouraged. We’re all very encouraged, and we all have a lot of confidence in each other. We’re all very tight knit. I would say we’re all pretty close with each other, and I feel like we’re very trusting when it comes to each other.”

Entering the second year of its program, Stringer said the team has taken on a new sense of ownership.

“They said they want to be leaders in the school, not only the football program, but in trying to get the students going to games and stuff like that,” Stringer said.

Stringer compares this team’s new identity to a past team.

“They remind me of a team a couple years ago that we had, that people kind of wrote off pretty early, but found their way back in the semifinals and worked and competed at a high level, and so I think this team’s very similar,” Stringer said. “They’re gritty.”

Both Monigold and Stringer said they hope to embody this grit throughout the season as the team pushes toward a State win both on the field and in the classroom.

“We want to win the academic state championship and get two trophies at once,” Stringer said.

Monigold remains confident in this goal.

“We know the route that we’ll take to the state championship,” Monigold said. “We know what we have to do to get there, and we truly believe that we have the best chance this year, more than any other year.”

Along with its run at State, Monigold said the team aims to develop each player into a stronger man.

“We’re leading them to just be passionate about what they’re doing, to just care about what they’re doing, and to love what they’re doing,” Monigold said.

With this goal in mind, Stringer added that the team aims to keep each member accountable for their actions both on and off the field.

“They know the expectations that I have for them and their behavior and what they need to do, not only in football, but outside of football,” Stringer said.

As the team sets off to begin the season, it looks toward success with determination.

“I feel like we’ve just thrown last season out the window,” Monigold said. “It didn’t end where we wanted it to be. This year, we have a goal in mind that we’re just doing everything we can this year, one step at a time to achieve it.”