Crawfordsville football hasn’t won a Montgomery County football game since 2016.
The expectation is that will change in 2024.
“We want to improve as a football program, both individually and collectively,” third-year coach Brad Clark said. “And as we improve, we need to start competing for county titles. North and South have established quality football programs and we need to raise our level of play in order to compete with them on a yearly basis.”
The Athenians finished just 1-9 a season ago, but return guys like Keegan Cokel and Tucker Pastore who will anchor both sides of the line, and skill guys like Braeden Hites, Anthony Lee, Sam Minnette and Danny Surface, who gained experience on both sides of the ball in 2023.
Hites is the top returning rusher with 270 yards last season, while Lee had 189 yards. Following the graduation of quarterback Kaden Patton, the Athenians will turn to an experienced rushing attack this season.
“We lost a lot of production in our pass game,” Clark said. “But we have a very experienced group of running-backs who we will lean heavily on in the run game. We also have a lot of guys who played varsity reps on defense last year, which should lead to a huge improvement on that side of the ball.”
Surface led the Athenians last season with 96 tackles as a sophomore, while Hites had 58 as a junior. Pastore had four sacks and an interception.
Crawfordsville opens the season at Parke Heritage on Aug. 23, before returning home against Fountain Central on Aug. 30.
“This is a group that has high expectations for this season,” Clark said. “It is a very confident group. Even though we will be young at some positions, they expect to be competitive in every game we play this season, which will put us in position to win more games.”
