Inexperienced Bobcats optimistic going into season

BROOKINGS – The Brookings football team will begin its season on Friday night at Mitchell. The Bobcats are lacking some experience this year but are ready for what’s to come in 2026.

Brookings went 5-5 last season and lost to Huron 7-2 in the Class AA quarterfinals. Brookings head coach Carter Gordon is entering his second season as the leader of the Bobcats and he said excited to show the Brookings community what his team has been working on in the offseason.

“I’m very happy with how the summer and fall camp went,” Gordon said. “I think even though we have a lack of varsity experience on the team, the boys have been really dedicated to learning and to just the team in general, and I’m excited. I know they’re excited to go out and show what they’ve been working on all summer to family and friends in the crowd.”

The Bobcats have just seven seniors on the roster and 12 juniors. The rest of the 60-player roster is underclassmen, including 37 sophomores. With that, Gordon said his team spent a lot of camp learning about the schemes of both their offense and defense.

“When I say lack of experience, we don’t have lack of leadership,” Gordon said. “Guys have been extremely coachable this year. We’ve had some underclassmen step up and lead. But in terms of the fact that a lot of our squad doesn’t have in-game varsity experience on the defense side of the ball, we’ve really kind of honed in on a couple of important schemes on offense for ourselves. Then we can make it look different in multiple ways, but it stays exactly the same for our boys, so it’s easy for them to remember. 

“Defensively, we have our base defense that we can flip around to make it look different as well, but at the end of the day, the reads and the fits are all the same for the defensive guys. I think we’ve probably overtaught sachem this summer, really focusing on technique for that scheme. So, I’m really proud of the coaching staff this summer and this fall because we’ve been teaching the whole time, and the boys have been accepting the teaching and coaching.”

Brookings lost 27 players to graduation last season and a lot of them were talented starters. One of the starting positions that the ‘Cats needed to fill was quarterback and junior Baker Hanson is going to be the one leading the Bobcat offense in 2026.

Gordon said Hanson hit the ground running trying to learn and has a drive to make sure Brookings is successful on offense this season.

“Baker Hanson is going to be our quarterback. He’s another one of those guys who’s just kind of excelled throughout the summer and throughout the fall. He’s gotten progressively better as we’ve gone on. You know, he’s got a want. He wants to be the guy. He wants to be great at the position, and so he’s always quizzing himself and asking questions. He’s just really been trying to focus on what he needs to do to make the offense successful,” Gordon said.

Hanson will have a pair of returning receivers to throw the ball to in senior-captain Ezra Eidem and senior Kingston Schneider. Gordon said he hopes those two seniors will be leaders on both sides of the ball.

“[Eidem] has been playing for the past two years in the slot receiver position and [Schneider] last year, due to injury, was forced into a role and kind of excelled as a junior. So, we’ll lean on those guys, putting the ball in the air, and hopefully getting it to them. Those two are really our two guys on defense that are returning with a lot of experience [as well],” Gordon said.

The other captain of the team is junior offensive and defensive lineman Jackson Neff. Gordon said he’s done a good job of leading the offensive line and talking them through situations.

As Gordon mentioned, the Bobcats will lack even more experience on defense. However, he said his two defensive coaches, Tyler Schneider and Cohl Ratermann have done a good job of getting the newcomers ready.

“The scheme and how we run our defense, coach Schneider and coach Ratermann really make it easy for the boys to understand. Reading their keys, filling in their gaps and whatever they need to do in their drops. But I would say [the defense] has an energy about them. … We’re replacing a lot of key guys on that side of the ball, but the younger guys know what the standard is on that side of the ball, and they’ve really embraced kind of what it means to be on the defense for the Brookings Bobcats,” Gordon said.

With all of the new faces on the varsity squad, Gordon said he didn’t want to put a win-loss goal for his team this season. He just wants to make sure that they get better every day and hopefully that will result in more wins than losses.

“I want to see growth and progress,” Gordon said. “We’re going to continue to teach the crap out of what we’re trying to do with these boys. I don’t want to give them an ultimatum of what a good year and a bad year looks like. I want them to go out and I want them to compete. And we have a group of guys that don't quit and don’t know what the word quit means. So, we’re really going to rely on that and we’re going to invest in this group of guys and not worry all that much about wins and losses right now.”

Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Friday night at Joe Quintal Field. You can watch the game on the Mitchell Kernels YouTube channel or listen to the game on KCountry 102.3 FM.