VEEDERSBURG, Ind. — After a year of learning, the Fountain Central football team is ready for the spotlight.
With almost everyone back from last season, the Mustangs are ready to go above and beyond their 4-6 record last season.
“We lost only one senior, so we have starters back in every position in defense and offense. We have a great nucleus of offensive and defensive players that know what were are trying to get accomplished,” Fountain Central head coach Herb King said. “We are ahead of the process from last year, but we have some injuries which you are always going to have early. We look like we can compete with everyone in our schedule.”
The Mustangs return Eli Foxworthy at quarterback. The junior passed for 993 yards with 12 touchdown passes and ran for 575 yards and eight more scores. Senior Noah Dodson had 98 tackles in his first season at Fountain Central and had 395 yards receiving with six touchdowns and ran for 326 more. On defense, Nolan Acton and Paul Adams each had three interceptions and Foxworthy had two.
“Noah was an All-State linebacker last year. We have a solid kid in Foxworthy and a dynamic player in Dodson,” King said. “We have a couple of linemen that can play well and we have done our best in the weight room this past year than any time before. You have strength and ability, but it is just a matter of them playing to the level that they are capable of playing for us to be successful.”
We have the oppornity to bring in players that have improved from a season before, but we have so much depth this season. We look at the season, we have enought players to rotate out hand have quality backups in every position.
The Mustangs start the season on Friday against Southmont
Southmont is traditionally a solid oppornetn for us because they are twice our size and are excited in playing in a new conference, but they are a good team. Tjhey return their skill players and they are a quality tea,. It is a big test for us because we have to step up tio play a team from a bigger conference and that’s going to push our team to play well.
King said the Mustangs’ games with Southmont and Crawfordsville should have them ready for the Wabash River Conference opener against Riverton Parke. The Panthers are coming off an 8-4 season.
“If you look at our schedule, we play two larger schools right off the bat and from our standpoint, we want to get better every week for our matchup against Riverton Parke in week 3,” King said. “We are eyeing the opportunity to have three quality games to start the season and I think that we can do some damage in winning these games and become a quality team by the end of the season.”