HOWELL — The long winter months of weightlifting are long past.
So, too, are summer workouts and the first couple weeks of practice in pads.
Now, high school football teams around the state are looking for that first payoff, a win in their season openers beginning tonight.
“It’s like Christmas,” Howell senior Jack Leslie said. “Next Friday, Christmas comes again. Nine weeks of holidays.”
The Highlanders are among four county teams starting their seasons tonight when they play at Livonia Stevenson in a game that will be broadcast on The Livingston Post starting at 6:50 p.m. Click here for the link.
In other action on Thursday, Brighton takes on Dearborn Fordson at Michigan Stadium, Hartland travels to Westland John Glenn and Pinckney plays host to Ann Arbor Skyline.
Fowlerville’s game at Corunna was pushed back to Friday due to construction at Corunna’s field.
The Highlanders are coming off two playoff seasons in a row, but will have an almost entirely new group of backs and ends,
Dru Taylor will start at quarterback, with Cole Quattlander seeing time at running back. Quattlander stepped in admirably when August Johanningsmeier went down with an injury at midseason.
A big reason was an offensive line that returns four starters from last year.
Bryce Poss, a 6-7 senior left tackle, says that continuity is important.
“Offensive line is a unit of five, and we have to work together,” he said, “knowing the plays we have to run and the guys we have to block. The four of us are really good together.”
The HIghlanders are in their third season under coach Brian Lewis, who says his team knows what to expect on offense and defense, which in turn results in more instinctive plays.
“Everyone’s on the same page,” hge said, “and we’ve had the best continuity between JV freshman and varsity, and that’s because people know what to expect, what the schedule looks like and what the routine looks like. They’re becoming more and more comfortable with owning your job, owning your position. That’s been a point of emphasis, and the boys have done a great job with it.”
As for the offense’s relative lack of experience in the backfield, Taylor isn’t concerned.
“We’ve been playing together for years,” he said. “We have that chemistry already formed. We have to just go out and play.”
It’s the first of three road games to start the season for Howell, which started last season with three home games.
Leslie, for one, isn’t concerned.
‘A challenge? Not really,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if we’re on this planet or Mars. We have to go out and play football.”
The Highlanders are expecting a longer than usual bus ride to Stevenson due to ongoing road work on I-96, and Lewis is expecting some nerves at kickoff.
“Nerves are a good thing because it means you’re invested in it and you care about it,” he said. We’re going to believe in our preparation. The kids have put a lot of work into this. We’re going to be on edge, but we’ll be on edge with excitement to go play. “
