Now, the Jets will transition from the underdog upstarts into a new, unfamiliar role — defending champion.
“It’s always nice to play the underdog until you’re not the underdog anymore,” said Northeastern coach Jake Buchholtz, who earned Division V All-Ohio Coach of the Year honors last fall.
Despite graduating several key players, including quarterback Cade Houseman and wide receiver Dylan Haggy, Northeastern will rely on a strong nucleus of players with plenty of varsity experience. The Jets return 13 seniors and 13 juniors, many of whom saw action last season.
“We’ve got a lot of new faces that have varsity experience, they’ve just never been the guy,” Buchholtz said. “It’s a good group of kids.”
The Jets will host Bethel at 7 p.m. Friday at Wittenberg University’s Edwards-Maurer Field in Springfield. The game was moved to due to the ongoing track construction at Conover Stadium.
“Our kids are excited, but they know it’s going to be a challenge this year,” Buchholtz said. “There’s a lot of teams ready to claim their mark back as ‘Kings of the North’ or OHC North champs. … We’ve been telling our kids you need to be hungry and prove that we have a next man up mentality and our expectations as a program aren’t going to waver.”
Houseman led the Jets in passing yards, rushing yards and tackles last season. They hope to replace his production with multiple players, Buchholtz said.
“That’s just not an every year kind of kid,” Buchholtz said, “but with that being said, we hope that that void is going to be picked up and rather than it be picked up by one kid, it can be picked up by four or five different kids.”
Offensively, sophomore Diezel Taylor will take over at quarterback. He threw four TDs in varsity action last season. Buchholtz expects Taylor to experience some growing pains — just as Houseman did his sophomore season — and said the offense must be tailored to his skill set.
“He’s going to do some things that are his strengths, and we need to make sure we’re putting him in situations to be successful,” Buchholtz said.
The offense also returns senior wideout Johnny Guevara, senior wideout Cody Lookabaugh, junior RB/WR Garrett Chadwell and sophomore RB Jackson Jones. The line will be anchored by senior tackle Brady Gillam.
Defensively, sophomore outside linebacker Cody Houseman returns after finishing second in tackles.
“We’re still trying to figure out how to get the best 11 on the field,” Buchholtz said. “We had a lot of kids get playing time last year, but they were role players last year. We graduated six four-year players from that class. That’s a lot of experience. We’re going to be young in some places. We’ve got enough guys that we should be able to compete.”
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