Season Preview: Fox Lane Football

It was a season of high hopes and a fast start for the Fox Lane Foxes in 2009, that ended in disappointment.

With change all-around for the upcoming 2010 season, including moving up to Class AA—a tougher league—things wont be easy this fall for the Foxes.

The biggest change for the team will come on the offensive side of the ball where the tandem of quarterback Jesse Hunt and wide receiver Timmy Muller has graduated.

"That's going to be tough because they were such great leaders, they had great poise and they exuded confidence, those types of characteristics are tough to find," said Fox Lane Head Coach Bill Broggy.

"We have some good kids that are not expected to replace them, but just to play their own game," he said.

The key to the offense might just be senior running back Karanja Elliot. He ran for over 700 yards last year and will be expected to take some of the pressure off new quarterback T.J. Hallock.

Coach Broggy talked about how important the running game will be this season and how he is looking for it to continue to be a strong point for his team.

"Its always important, if you can't run then you're not going to be able to throw either because you got to keep teams off balance," he said. "The run game was pretty strong last year and we hope that it continues to be good this year."

For the running game and a brand new signal caller to have their jobs become easier, the play of the offensive line will be important as well. The defensive secondary could also be a place of concern going into the season for the Foxes.

Both places were hit hard by players graduating and Broggy knows this and mentioned how he feels the line and secondary needs to keep getting better.

"Offensively, we really have to sure up the offensive line, defensively we need to sure up the secondary, we graduated 19 seniors and those are the main spots where we lost the majority of the players," he said.

The defense will be led by Cameron Stephens at defensive end, Anthony Grasso at linebacker and Will Trawick at linebacker as well.

Those three all started last season with Grasso and Trawick doing so as sophomores and they will need to step up after the defense gave up 20 points per game last year.

"Just playing better team defense, we were very young defensively," said Broggy. "We started five sophomores last season and now they are all juniors and bigger this year, so we think that will help us," he said.

With changes all around and a younger team ready to take the field against tougher competition in Class AA, Coach Broggy is expecting all of his players to step their game up this season.

"We expect contributions from everyone, especially in the run game. Were hoping that the offensive line does a real good job, we are really expecting everyone to step up," he said.