With two weeks of fall practices in the books, the Laurel-Concord-Coleridge football team will be turning their attention to their first opponent of the 2024 season.
There’ll be 30 members out for LCC football with about seven seniors and a lot of kids who bring back a lot of football experience on both sides of the ball.
Alan Gottula will be entering his sixth year coaching at Laurel-Concord-Coleridge and will be starting his fourth year as the head coach.
Coach Gottula said with experienced players they started with the mental aspect of the game during week one of practices followed by the physical element.
“I’m very pleased with our progression,” said Gottula. “That’s not to say that there’s not a bump in the road, get your head in the playbook type day. That’s football and we have some of that but I’m very pleased with what we’re doing.”
Pat Harrington, Nate Sims and Izac Reifenrath will join coach Gottula as assistants.
Over the summer, LCC showed improvement in their enthusiasm after putting in the work in the weigh room.
Coach Gottula added it was a great off-season.
“A lot of it was the direct result of the fact that we now have a weight room,” Gottula added. “We’ve been kind of in a gymnasium and moving around a little bit for the last two years because of the building project. Now we’ve got arguably as nice as a weight room as anyone in northeast Nebraska.”
LCC will be made up of a strong senior class including Gibson Roberts, Eli Haisch, Caleb Erwin, Walker Stone, Connor Korth, Aric Hall and Ryder Jelinek. Others who coach Gottula highlighted were sophomore Cade Johnson, junior Kolten Settje and junior Tyler Boysen.
Laurel-Concord-Coleridge was able to fill some positions following graduation last year with experienced players who earned playing time in the reserve role in 2023.
Coach Gottula mentioned LCC breaks each game down one play and one down at a time.
“We want to play every game with a lot of energy, a lot of effort, a lot of enthusiasm,” Gottula mentioned. “We also want to be physical and aggressive. Those are two big goals for us. One of the things we’ve kind of hung our hat on now for the last four years is do your job, execute.”
The 2024 season opener for Laurel-Concord-Coleridge will be on Friday, Aug. 30 at Guardian Angels Central Catholic in Beemer at 7 p.m.
