Excitement was in the air and on the turf at Newell Stadium on Monday afternoon as the Gloucester High football team officially began training for what they hope will be another playoff-qualifying campaign.
The Fishermen joined hundreds of other programs across the Commonwealth by opening things up with padless practices — and now, it’s all a crunch until opening night against Stoneham on Friday, Sept. 11.
“It was a good first day, lot of learning, lot of excitement out of the older kids,” said first-year GHS head coach Brian Anderson. “The kids showed up poised and ready to go from the start. Overall I thought it was a pretty good Day 1.”
After winning eight games last season, including a Division 5 playoff home clash against Auburn, the Fishermen will turn the page without their three leading rushers from a season ago: Jaylen Severino, Thomas Cribbs and Joe Allen.
For a team that primarily runs the football — they attempted just 41 total passes in 11 games last fall — filling the void in the backfield isn’t going to be seamless. The Wing-T offense will almost certainly remain in tact under Anderson, meaning moving the chains via yardage on the ground is going to be paramount to the team’s success.
Despite losing its talented three-headed monster, Gloucester is lucky enough to have a large senior class and 45 student-athletes in all in the program for 2026. The hope is to find some consistency in the running department as the year rolls on.
“We’re up to 18 seniors, so very senior heavy which is good,” said Anderson. “We have a lot of kids that have been in the program all four years and we have a number of kids back that didn’t play their junior years for a number of reasons but have decided to come back, look to find a spot and help this team.
“We’ll offer a varsity and a JV team,” continued Anderson, “and if we stay healthy we’ll work to try to get some JV 2 games on the schedule so those kids have some games for themselves, too.”
Seniors Cole Mosely-Wynn (QB/LB), Nash Marshall (RB/LB), Caleb Allen (OL/DL) and Max Thomas (OL/DL) will serve as team captains this year, and all four of them bring plenty of experience and on-field production to the table. Those guys and plenty of other upperclassmen and youngsters will soon have their time to shine on game nights, but for now, it’s back to the basics.
Anderson says much of the team’s current Week 1 of practice will be spent in front of the white board and doing walk-throughs, with full pads and full contact practices not slated to commence until Saturday.
“It’s a lot of conditioning right now, mental reps, and a lot of time spent in the classroom,” said Anderson. “Installing the offense and defense, walking through those things and having them translate on to the field. So right now it’s draw it, talk it, walk it and then we’ll ramp things up later this week before full pads.”
Gloucester will get its first taste at live action next Tuesday when it travels to Wilmington for the first of two scrimmages. The next comes three days later on Friday morning at home against Essex Tech.
With Labor Day falling so late this year (Sept. 7), everything has been delayed. But if the first few early practices are any indication, Gloucester will be ready to roll come opening night.
Sports Editor Nick Giannino may be contacted at 978-675-2712 or ngiannino@northofboston.com.