OLIVESBURG – They say there is strength in numbers. If that’s the case, then this year’s Crestview football team should be pretty mighty.
The Division VI team has 73 players on its roster heading into the 2016 season, an increase of nearly 100 percent from last season. The main reason: second-year coach Dan Mager.
“When I got here, one of my visions was we’ve got to have numbers,” Mager said. “When you have a lot of players, you’ve got better competition, you’ve got better depth if you’ve got injuries and it just makes your team overall better. You’re not having guys go both ways the whole time.”
Mager, who took over the Cougars last year after many years as an assistant at Hillsdale, made a concerted effort this season to recruit every Crestview student who had played football when they were younger and then stopped playing.
“Our coaches are going out and seeking kids,” Mager said. “My line to the kids is if you ever wanted to be part of Crestview football, now is the time.”
The coach and his staff are working hard to build an environment and a culture that entices kids to want to be part of the team.
“We do a lot of things here tradition-wise that for some of those kids, maybe at the bottom of the roster, they’re still going to get a great feel for their football career” Mager said. “Whether it’s on special teams or doing the pride walk we do, the community thank you walk we do at the end, being out on the field for the anthem. We’re just doing a lot of things to create an atmosphere and a culture where everyone wants to be a part of it. Fans, female, male, veterans, old alumni. And I think that’s what’s working.”
Last year at this time, Mager and the players were going through a learning curve, with the players adjusting to a new coach and the coach adjusting to his new surroundings. Now, in Year 2, the coach likes what he is seeing in practice so far.
“Sitting here right now I feel we can win any game we play. And last year I couldn’t say that,” Mager said. “The biggest thing I see is we’re just so far ahead of where we were last year at this time.”
Although the team has big overall numbers, the Cougars are a little light at the top, with only four seniors on the roster — linemen Dakota Slocum, Chandler Prise and Shane Casper, and slot back/defensive back Dawson LaFever.
“Our four seniors will all be impact players,” Mager said. “So yeah we only have four but I really feel all four of them will be very impactful on the field on Friday nights.”
This year’s junior class got a lot of experience at the varsity level last year as sophomores, with many of them starting on both sides of the ball.
“The junior class has won at every level. A lot of them played as sophomores last year and I’ve already seen some leadership ability,” Mager said.
One of those leaders is junior quarterback Jay Oswalt. Although the signal caller doesn’t get a lot of chances to show his arm in Mager’s option offense, the coach praised Oswalt’s passing ability and his leadership.
“He throws a great ball” Mager said of Oswalt. “He’s calm and cool. That’s what you want at a quarterback. Someone who can keep things level. You wouldn’t know if he made an 80-yard run or lost 8 yards.”
Among the 73 players on the Cougars roster is one rarity in North Central Ohio: a female football player. Sophomore Carly Stevens, who also plays soccer during the fall and wrestled last winter for Crestview, will kick for the football team.
“She’s a tough girl,” Mager said. “She’s one of those we went after.”
Mager said that although they already have a kicker, she will probably kick some extra points and has been a valuable addition to the team.
In spite of the big numbers playing for the Cougars, there is one missing player that has left a big hole: Walker Ramsay. Ramsay, who would have been a senior this year, passed away on May 29 after having a seizure in his sleep.
“I think anytime a team goes through a tragedy like that they have a tendency to bond closer together,” Mager said.
During the team’s picture day last week, Prise and LaFever held Ramsay’s No. 12 jersey, honoring their late teammate.
The team is planning several special activities during the first game to pay tribute to Ramsay.
“It’s going to be a special night,” Mager said. ‘I’m sure it’s going to be a very emotion night for the kids.”
The coach has arranged for fireworks to be shot off every time the Cougars score a touchdown in the first game against Galion Northmor. Ramsay had heard about these plans last spring before he died.
Mager said the last time he talked to Ramsay was about a week before he died. The player told his coach that he wanted to be the first one to score a touchdown and make the fireworks go off. In honor of Ramsay’s jersey number, there will be a 12-shot salute after Crestview’s first touchdown and the ball will be given to Ramsay’s father, Greg Ramsay.
In addition, Walker Ramsay’s sister will lead the team out on the field before the game, and the Cougars will line up for their first defensive play with only 10 men on the field and no one playing corner, the position Ramsay would have played.
Even with the loss of Ramsay, Mager is optimistic the team can improve on its 2015 record of 3-7 in 2015. “I want us to improve. I know 3-7 is not going to get it done,” Mager said.
The second-year coach hopes the Cougars can build on the way the 2015 season ended, with two wins in the the last three games.
“A big turning point for us was when we got whipped pretty bad by Norwalk St. Paul at home and we had lost six in a row, three in overtime. It was a real critical period there where I think people could have packed it in but we hung tough, the kids stayed tough, and we had 12th ranked Monroeville come in and we beat them. That was a big turning point for our program, especially if I look out and we end up doing pretty well over the next few years, I’m going to look at that as a defining moment,” Mager said. “A lot of that momentum we took out of that at the end of the year and hopefully that carries over to this group.”
