Coach Robb says Indians are ready to play football

First year Tecumseh head varsity football coach Steve Robb said his team is ready to go and is confident the Indians will be competitive this season. “We’re excited and optimistic,” Robb said.The Indians’ new coach has seen a good work ethic out of his athletes and has had no major issues during preseason practices. “We did seven days of two-a-days plus weekends. We’ve been going at it pretty hard, three nights of conditioning before the season that I call ‘three dog nights’ and some other stuff. We’ve been going all summer and I’m really impressed with the conditioning level and work ethic of the team. It’s a good bunch of guys. They listen well and are pretty intelligent from a football standpoint.”Tecumseh opens the season at home against Saint Mary Catholic Central (SMCC) on Thursday and fans won’t see a whole lot of change from last year’s playbook. “We added a few wrinkles here and there to the offense we were running last year. Coach (Al) Romano had a great offense and it wasn’t broke so we were kind of thinking we don’t need to fix it or change it very much,” Robb said.Defensively there were some changes. “Defensively we’ve changed a little bit but nothing that they haven’t picked up. I think the mental part of it has been pretty easy for us to grasp,” said Robb.The Indians’ have just five returning starters including senior co-captains Mitch Meger (RB/DB, ran for over 1,200-yards last season), Jacob Coker (QB/DB, passed for more than 1,200-yards last season) and Landon Pelham (inside linebacker - RB/LB).The other returning starters are junior Josh Treadway (offensive tackle - OL/DL) and senior Tom Mamel (outside linebacker, receiver - TE/LB).“The other young guys have come in and even the seniors that are playing quite a bit now, some of them didn’t get a lot of experience last year. So, I’d say we’re kind of young,” Robb said. “Experience is not our strong suit.”Also mentioned by the coach in the preseason interview were junior receivers Spencer Cowen and Jordan Patterson as potential standouts. “It looks like they are going to have a big impact on the offense this year.”Defensively, two sophomores have been rising to the top with coach Robb mentioning Will Sparrow and Gabe Bechtol as probable starting linebackers. Robb pointed out that senior linebacker Josh Marcum was “looking great.” In the pre-season seven-on-seven summer scrimmages, Robb thought the Indians held their own.“We were pleased with our efforts in the four way scrimmage yesterday,” he said. “We started slow but improved probably every minute we were on the field we got better.” Tecumseh played Ann Arbor Pioneer, Flint Southwest, and Lansing Everett. “They were all big and athletic and we held our own and were pleased with our effort.“We’re really excited about next Thursday and getting a chance to open at home against SMCC,” Robb added.The Indians will try to two-platoon but at least a couple of players are expected to be working on both sides of the ball.Last year Tecumseh was 5-5 overall and 3-2 in the Southeastern Conference, ending its season with a 47-6 loss to DeWitt in the Division 3 pre-districts. The Indians lost 35-13 last season in their opener against SMCC.