Fall Sports Previews: Plenty of Newcomers Join Key Veterans on Football Roster

Chatham football Head Coach Don Morgenroth is hoping his team's 2010 season emulates the 2009 campaign, during which the Cougars went 6-4 and made the state playoffs.

"I expect to do what we did last year," said Morgenroth. "Hopefully compete like we competed last year in the league and in the state playoffs. We finished 6-4 (last year) and we lost in the first round of the playoffs to Caldwell."

Although the team lost over a dozen starters on both sides of the ball from the 2009 squad, Morgenroth feels that this team can thrive with underclassmen. If the 2010 Cougars are to succeed, they will do so with youngsters and a few familiar faces.

Quarterback Nick Guida, tailback/linebacker James DeMata and receiver/free safety Andrew Wood are some of the captains that will be expected to lead the team to the promised land.

"We lost a good amount (of seniors)," said Morgenroth. "We had about 15 seniors that all played either on one side of the ball or the other. The beauty is some of our young guys all had a lot of reps through J.V. games and sophomore games, but we're returning some key guys too."

The team got its first taste of battle on Tuesday afternoon, as Governor Livingston came to Cougar Field for a scrimmage. Although it was basically a glorified practice, the starters got to face off against live competition and work out the kinks of the off season.

"We did good (in the scrimmage)," said Morgenroth. "I'm pleased, I'm not upset with anything. There were a couple of mistakes but I was happy with the way we competed. We want to improve on the little things; make a little mistake here, maybe running our routes better and positioning alignment on defense."

The next task for the Cougars will be a scrimmage at Summit on Saturday at 10 a.m., followed by another scrimmage at home against Columbia on Tuesday at 11 a.m. The team will close out its preseason schedule with a home scrimmage against Parsippany on Sept. 3 at 4 p.m. before the season-opener at home against Hackettstown on Sept. 11 at 1 p.m.

"We're just going to come out there and try to be a hard-nosed team," said Morgenroth. "(We're going to try to) hit people in the mouth first and hopefully make things happen for ourselves."