Coming off an 8-4 season that included a win in the opening round of the playoffs, the Galion Tigers varsity football team aims to keep that momentum going in 2024 despite losing a large group of graduating seniors who played an integral role in that success.

Head coach Matt Dick, who is entering his ninth season at Galion, will need to replace 14 seniors, including three first-team All-Ohio players in offensive lineman Holden Hunter, defensive lineman Linkon Tyrrell, and punter Landon Campbell, as well as a pair of third-team All-Ohio performers in running back Gabe Ivy and linebacker Carson Frankhouse.

“The quality of kids they were and the team they helped create (will be difficult),” Dick told the Inquirer. “This is a new group (in 2024). We’re a lot smaller, but we have a lot of really quick, fast guys who are strong. We have an endless supply of 5-foot-8-inch, 155-pound guys who probably run 4.7 (40-yard dashes) and can (power) clean 185 pounds. So we’re a lot of little duplicate guys, so it’s definitely a different look.”

Few losses will be felt more than Ivy’s departure after serving as the Tigers’ workhouse back in an offensive scheme predicated on the power run. But even more so than his production on the field, Dick said replacing Ivy’s leadership will be a difficult task.

“His unselfishness, I think, is the hardest thing to replace,” Dick said. “He was a kid who would do anything for anybody. Everyone loved him and wanted to block for him.”

The returning seniors will need to step up in that department for Galion, and Dick mentioned guys like quarterback Braxton Prosser and defensive back and receiver Allen Carver as two players he expects to fill that role modeled by Ivy.

On the field, junior running back Braxton Stuckman is likely to shoulder much of the carries left behind by Ivy’s departure, but Dick believes they will spread the ball around more than in years past with a smaller offensive line but no shortage of playmakers to utilize.

“I like what our offensive coordinator is doing in getting guys the ball on screens or quick passes or even going deep. A guy like (junior receiver) Jacob Chambers can really stretch the field,” Dick said, adding that he believes he has as many as six guys who have looked “special” in practice when getting the ball in their hands.

Dick added, “Allen Carver, who played free safety for us last year, he has just looked exceptionally quick at receiver. Ayden Schmidt was a corner for us last year, and he rests Carver. It’s kind of cool to have two kids who are really similar in their size and athletic ability, and you can just plug them in and always have a threat at slot receiver.”

Other players expected to add to Galion’s pool of weapons include Sam Evans, Trevor Shifley, and Cohen Adams.

“I’ve been everything from a wing-t gun (coach), kind of like we were last year when we had two tight ends on the field for most of the game, to no tight ends on the field,” he said. “I think this year, we’re probably closer to having no tight ends although we do have a sophomore in Dom Capretta who’s made some nice plays. But I just think we have so many of these skilled athletes, and just keeping them fresh and rotating them in, I think it can lead to a very explosive offense if everyone can do their one-eleventh.”

Of course, the willingness to spread the ball around this season is aided by the return of a quarterback with three years of starting experience. Dick said he expected Prosser to be more explosive in the passing game a season ago, although he noted some of that was a result of the play-calling and the heavier, grind-it-out personnel they had on the field, but there will be no holding him back this season.

“This year, we’re a different team, and we’re going to let him let it rip,” Dick said of Prosser. “Where he goes, we go. I think our kids and this team understand that, and I think a lot of them are excited to watch him play. In our conference, we have about five or six quarterbacks who are all pretty similar and really fun to watch, so it could lead to some pretty exciting football.”

However they plan to go about doing it, Galion’s goals this season remain the same: constantly improve and put themselves in position to compete for a Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference (MOAC) title late in the season, and Dick believes his team is beginning to make strides toward that ultimate goal.

“We want to go 1-0 every day,” he said. “If we do that, we’re going to get better and better. … It’s high school football; the ball bounces funny every year. And in the MOAC, on any given night you can win or lose, so that’s what makes it so much fun. If our kids just keep putting in those little pockets of work every day, we have a lot of potential.”

He added, “That idea that we can compete with anybody is something I’m all about, and our kids have bought into that mindset,” Dick said.