Coming off a big win in Westerville, the Capital University football team is looking ahead to yet another victory this weekend.
On Oct. 1, the Capital Crusaders defeated the rival Otterbein Cardinals by a final score of 42-41. This Saturday, Capital will take on the Ohio Northern Polar Bears at Bernlohr Stadium, hopefully capping off homecoming week with a win. Kickoff is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. and will be preceded by other homecoming festivities.
Head coach Chad Rogosheske says that the football team is improving with every week and shows no signs of stopping.
“They’ve made steady improvement from preseason camp,” Rogosheske said and went on to illustrate how the games so far have shown his players what needs to be improved.
Rogosheske, who is in his first season as head coach at Capital, remarked that his team took a couple weeks to find out how to react to teams that run plays “a little bit differently.”
Going into the homecoming game, Rogosheske relayed that he talks to his team about channeling the excess emotion that comes with a big game and making sure that the players use it in “positive ways that benefit [their] preparation.”
Rogosheske says that playing week-to-week has been one of the keys to success so far this season, and that he is focused on putting together “the absolute best plan … for every week for our guys and [on having] a progression of practicing and teaching that plan.”
Overall, Coach Rogosheske is optimistic.
Senior H-back Chase Longwell is also optimistic about the upcoming game against Ohio Northern. While he praises the run defenses of opponents like Otterbein and Ohio Northern, he says that the new style of offense under Coach Rogosheske has seen the team score more points and that he looks forward to a win this weekend.
In addition to the football game, there will be other events throughout the day. The game will be directly preceded by the dedication of the new playing surface, and there will be food following the game at the alumni house across the street from Bernlohr Stadium. A complete schedule of events can be found on the Capital University website.
The weekend looks promising for the football team, and for Capital University as a whole. The weather is supposed to be nice, there are activities planned throughout the weekend, and the Capital football team is going up against a 1-3 Ohio Northern team, who has lost many of last year’s seniors to graduation.
Things are looking up, but there is still work to be done. Football games, as Coach Rogosheske will tell you, do not win themselves. As he tells his players, “I’ve never scored a point, made a tackle, or gain a yard just by talking about it.”
