Colby football begins a new season as defending state champions

COLBY, Wis. (WSAW) - Colby football is the defending Division 6 champions, but they aren’t living in the past ahead of the start of their 2022 season.

The Hornets lose some key players like the Jeske triplets, but they return players like Caden Healy as a running back and Mateo Lopez in the backfield and at safety. That experience should help the Hornets begin their march back to Madison, but their sights aren’t on Camp Randall just yet.

”There’s a lot of pressure on us, thinking oh ‘big state champs.’ We’re just going to take it game by game. Main goal right now is conference,” Lopez said.

Last season, Colby head coach Jim Hagen admits the team had very high expectations entering the season. Those expectations aren’t quite as high this season, but he has a straight-forward goal for the program.

“We’re just hoping to make the playoffs for the 16th year in a row,” Hagen said.

“Don’t rest on the success of last year, meaning last year was a great year but that year is over. This year is a time to start their own legacy and tradition,” he added.

That includes new quarterback Tucker Meyer, who replaces Brent Jeske under center. Jeske scored all three touchdowns in their state title victory, and is a difficult player to replace.

”We’re not going to rely on the quarterback as much as we did last year to run the football, like we did with Brent. Colby is always going to be a run first team, but we’ll throw the ball a little bit more than last year,” Hagen said.

Meyer isn’t a runner like Jeske was, so Colby will be forced to use the air attack more.

“I got some big shoes to fill, and I’ll try to fill them as best I can throughout the season,” Meyer said.

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