Thayer Central Trying to Carry End of 2016 Momentum into Second Year of Eight Man

HEBRON - Despite a 2-6 record last season, the Thayer Central Titans saw lots of improvement by the end of the year. 2016 was an interesting season for Head Coach Jereme Jones and the Titans. Jones was fresh off coaching six man football and the rest of the team was moving from 11 man. It certainly took some adjustments in Class D1. "About the third game of the year, Diller-Odell, I felt lost trying to figure out what we were going to do. Then, we basically got back to basics, found the things that worked and focused on that. After that, we kind of took off last year, and it was like a different team the second half of the year," said Coach Jones. This season presents a new challenge for the Titans. They lost seven seniors from last year, and have 23 players out this year, including 11 new players. The returning seniors have their goals set high, though. "We'd like to get a winning record or a .500 record. We've got a couple goals, make the playoffs. We haven't made the playoffs in a couple years, I think it's six years now," said Senior Brendan Fangmeier. Coach Jones is focusing on instilling a tradition into his players to have more success this year. "We've got a carry your shield culture, which means we never give up, we focus on unity, we focus on sacrificing for each other. At the beginning, we weren't really exemplifying that, but by the end of the year, we really had that carry your shield culture down and we were really hitting on all cylinders." Thayer Central begins their season at Johnson-Brock. Follow their year all year long on News Channel Nebraska.