UPDATE: The Orioles won against Abilene 36-22 on Oct. 11. Senior Gabe Kohls and Senior Willy Jon Morales separately stole the ball from Abilene and scored a touchdown for Augusta.
When the football team spoke at the pre-season bonfire, they felt hopeful about the season. A new coaching staff sparked that hope with expectations for themselves and the players.
Head coach Dawson Elliott’s first task after taking the lead job was to fill the assistant coaching positions.
His goal was to “Get people I can trust because I don’t trust many people,” Elliott said.
Elliott wanted to take the head coaching position seriously.
“I want to understand what I can do to work hard and compete,” Elliott said.
The Orioles played in five games since September and failed to earn a win.
“There’s a way to lose. In the past, they’ve been just getting walked on and now we’re just beating ourselves,“ Elliott said.
Even with a poor record, Elliott tries to keep the team focused on a competing over a tussling mindset
“They’ll win eventually when we figure out how to win and not lose,” Elliott said.
Elliott stands strong renouncing a crushed team spirit. Coaches make multiple, necessary decisions with every game. When spectators dislike the coach’s actions, it causes tension.
“I don’t care what they think,” Elliott said. “I don’t care what they say.”
Senior receiver David Sullivan started his football career in third grade. He has not seen a major victory since he began playing. After nine years of playing football, Sullivan acknowledges the players are responsible for the losses.
“I think we’ve just made some basic mistakes,” Sullivan said.
Even if athletes like junior wide receiver Brecken Albert have played football for many years, they still take repetitive losses differently than the coaches.
“For players It makes us go harder in practice, and you can’t really go harder in practice if you’re not playing,” Albert said.
Playing on the field drives intensity, but spectators often lack an understanding of the players’ effort.
“Practice every day, doing the things we do. They don’t understand that,” Albert said.
Elliott emphasized the team’s focus on self-improvement rather than external opinions as they strive to improve.
“Most of these kids haven’t had a true winning season since elementary school, so they’re working out, playing hard,” Elliott said. “It’s just figuring out how to truly be a winning team and not make mistakes we’ve been making, and we do not care what anybody else thinks or their opinions on the season, we are focusing on ourselves.”
