High school football 2023 preview: Get to know Tuscola

Aug. 24—Love of the game

Tuscola is a football town. So it shouldn't be much of a surprise that Brady Cain and Sam Spencer started playing when they were in the fourth grade and kept going to games on Friday nights until it was their turn to suit up for the Warriors. "I think that being a football player for Tuscola is one of the biggest accomplishments in town," said Cain, who is moving from center to tight end this season while also still playing linebacker. "(Friday is) just a different energy. I've never been able to find any words to describe it. Everyone knows that when it comes to game time, it'll be real emotional. It's a feeling unlike anything else." "It's also fun being around people I've grown up with my entire life and play a sport with them," Spencer added.

Season outlook

The first three weeks of Tuscola's schedule are ... unique. Mostly because the Warriors have never played Peru-St. Bede, Carlyle or Farmington. It's the result of the Central Illinois Conference dropping to just six teams before next year's football-only merger with the Heart of Illinois Conference. The rest of the schedule will be more familiar to the Warriors (save for the regular season finale against Oblong). "Really, our first three weeks are very foreign," Tuscola coach Andy Romine said. "In the history of our program, we've never played the three we're going to play. We've played football for 127 years. Then, we get into the familiar, but really difficult part of our schedule in Week 4. Shelbyville is probably the favorite, on paper, to win the league. (Central) A&M is always good. I don't want to look too far ahead, but it's very unfamiliar."

Playoffs ... or bust

Tuscola had qualified for the playoffs in 24 of 25 seasons — missing only in 2012 — before the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out postseason football for everyone in a delayed 2020 season. A rash of cases during the 2021 season meant the Warriors had to cancel two games and ultimately miss the playoffs again. Tuscola was back in the playoffs last fall, reaching the Class 1A quarterfinals, and the expectation for the Douglas County power hasn't changed. The Warriors are simply used to deep playoff runs. "I know as a team, we all feel really confident," Spencer said. "I think we can go the same distance and maybe even further. It's going to come down to the small, little things that we'll have to fix."

Odds and ends

Tuscola's old scoreboard blew down in December 2021. After some indecision about how to move forward, school board member Wade Wilcox took point on getting a privately-funded replacement. The Warriors will now have the largest Daktronics scoreboard in the state. "It's massive," Romine said. "It's gaudy. That's what we're after." Tuscola also has new bleachers — on both sides of the field, with more room for visiting fans — extra bleachers for students in the east end zone and a new press box. "It's so exciting," Cain said. "All our kids work so hard, they deserve all the new stuff we're getting. We got a brand-new weight room right before the summer started. I'm very excited for the classes under us to get all of this moving forward."