The Aberdeen Central football team has a different leader and will feature a bit of a different look this season.
Justin Briese takes over the reigns of the Golden Eagles after spending most of the past decade as the team’s linebackers coach. While the squad featured a wide-open offensive attack last year, look for the blue and gold to be more of a black and blue style of team this fall.
“I think we’re going to be a little more blue-collar. That’s kind of my mentality is more physical,” Briese said. “We’ve been working on being more physical. We’ve been working on playing hard, solid, fundamental football, which comes to little things: can you block, can you tackle, can you catch, can you run? Those simple fundamentals, which we do those things well, it doesn’t matter what play or scheme or whatever we run, if we just do those things well, things are going to work out.”
Sam Rohlfs, one of the state’s premier athletes, graduated this past spring, but the cupboard is far from bare.
“We lost some kids last year, but I think younger kids stepped up and saw what those kids could do,” Briese said. “It’s hard to replace a Sam Rohlfs and his athletic ability, but we have some kids that have stepped up and are leaders and play within their abilities. That’s all we ask them to do, and we can still be successful with who we have.”
The Eagles will be led on the ground by Karson Carda, who topped the squad in rushing a year ago. Briese knows that opponents will be focused on stopping the powerful running back.
“He’s going to have a target on his back, which means other guys are going to have to step up and take on their responsibilities more,” Briese said.
Of course, a key to any running game is what happens in the trenches and the Eagles have some key returning members on the line.
“We have some big guys up there that are going to take care of our up front,” Briese said. “As always with any football game, offensive and defensive line either win you the game or can lose a game for you. We’ve got a solid group of defensive linemen and we have a solid group of offensive linemen.”
Key offensive linemen include tackle Jacob Krenz, center Samson Flakus, Bryce Beitelspacher and Andrew Jorgenson. Anchoring the defensive line are Brian Johnson, Casey Vining, Ethan Orr and Chandler Gardner.
Central still has some playmakers on offense featuring the likes of speedsters Drew Salfrank and Aiden Heimann.
“We’re going to have a lot of kids that have some experience,” Briese said. “They know what’s going on and what’s expected of them.”
The Golden Eagles start the season the same place they finished it last year, in Pierre on Saturday, taking on the five-time Class 11AA state champion.
Last year, during Central’s first year of 11AA after dropping down from 11AAA, the squad led the Governors in the fourth quarter of a semifinal playoff contest. That came on the heels of a post-season road win over Brookings.
“What last year did mostly for our kids, our program, the school, the community, was said, hey, we can do this,” Briese said, “the higher expectations that our school and our kids have. It’s changed that expectation.”
While the Golden Eagles were just a few possessions away from playing for a state championship a year ago, Briese said the squad will focus on little things in order to help make the big things attainable.
“We don’t talk every day about the ultimate goal. Every team in the state is going to have that ultimate goal of being a state champion, but we talk early in the season briefly about that, say this is our goal, now the important thing is to identify and work on the things that are going to get us there,” he said. “If we focus just on our big goal, everything underneath that gets kind of lost.”
Instead, the Golden Eagles will concentrate on each single snap, making sure they are fundamentally sound and executing their assignments.
“We do that consistently over and over again, then that big goal becomes more attainable, but we have to work for it. It’s not going to happen in one big bite,” Briese said. “I told the kids we can’t eat an elephant in one bite. Elephants are eaten one bite at a time, and everybody take their little bite every single day and eventually that big goal is accomplished.”
