 It's year eight of Mingo Central Miner football and the minors for the third consecutive year will have a brand new head coach, but a familiar face as defensive coordinator Josh Sammons has been promoted to take over for Joey Fields. The minors have had an incredible run over the last four years by winning 46 of their last 52 ball games, capturing back-to-back Cardinal Conference titles and a state double-A championship back in 2016. Mingo Central last year finished with a record of 12-1 before being ousted at home in the state semifinals to the polar bears of Fairmont Senior. Mingo Central will be looking for their seventh consecutive playoff appearance, however this season will be a challenge as the minors graduated Jeremy Dillon and 16 other Seniors. Going real good. I mean, we're, I think we're ahead of schedule. Guys are working real hard. We got a lot of, we got like 65 kids out. You know, it's a, it's a very, very young team. I mean, like I was talking yesterday with our coaches, we're probably going to start, and I've said this numerous times, probably six sophomores on each side of the ball. Probably only start three seniors on each side of the ball. So I mean, that's a good thing. We're building. We're going to be young, but we're going to compete with teams. We're pretty young, but I mean, we're getting a lot better as each day goes by. Like I said, we're really young, but next year I say we'll be really good because we've got a lot of growing to do. Been running a lot. We've been really trying to get, uh, physically in shape, with conditioning and stuff. Just trying to get the younger guys really ready. Yeah, going good. We didn't, a lot of running, getting in shape, and really that's all we need to do. I mean, we got the plays and stuff down. Just got to get in shape, get ready for this season. With Mingo Central manhandling their opposition, opponents are ready to take out frustration on Mingo Central. However, head coach Josh Salmon says that the team's not backing down. I like that we're young and we're expected to be underdogs when I'm here. And you know, that's, I like that role and you know, I'm looking forward to this season. Just I expect us to make the playoffs for sure. You know, our, our, our goal is 10-0. You know, that's what we said. That's what we want to do. We want to win the Cardinal Conference. We want to make playoffs and compete and hopefully win a state championship. I mean, you can't go in this thing thinking, hey, let's be six and four, five and five and be happy. That's just not what we're building up here. It's not what we want to be. We want to be 10-0. We want to win this thing. Well, Jeremy leaving. Everybody thanks for down, but I still think we're going to have a good season. We got a good young quarterback in day-day and I feel like he can throw the ball. I don't feel like we're going to be that bad. I think we're going to do, you guys got here every play and just try very hardest every play. I love it. No place like Mingo without being underdogs. Always have. We lost a lot and I understand why people say that, but we also, we have a lot of young talent. We got a sophomore quarterback that's going to be really good and we got a good set of receivers. So we'll be all right. This is a great bunch of kids. I've had, you know, no mouse running their mouse back. They've all been to practice each day and I couldn't ask for a better group of kids to start my career off. From Newtown with EKB Sports, I'm Joe Kinzer.