Lincoln football returns a high-powered offense and is looking for diamonds on defense in 2023
One thing you can count on in the upcoming South Dakota high school football season is that Sioux Falls Lincoln will have one of the more explosive offenses in the state.
After going 7-4 a season ago and falling to eventual state champions Jefferson in the state semifinals, they’re viewed as one of the favorites to make a run to the class 11AAA title game. On offense, they bring back two of the best players in the state in quarterback Tate Schafer and wide receiver Jack Smith, both of whom are seniors. They also return six other starters on offense, including senior wide receiver Isaac Jarovski, senior running back Dreavin Hodge and four offensive linemen.
The team’s biggest question mark will come on defense. They’ll be returning only five starters on that end after seeing some all-state level talent graduate.
“Every year poses new challenges,” said Lincoln football coach Jared Fredenburg. “And every year you have a couple guys that step up that are kind of diamonds that you never really expected.”
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The good news is that they return their two safeties who controlled a lot of their defense a year ago. The Patriots secondary will be the more experienced group on defense as they return three defensive backs, seniors Ryan Hirsch, Sawyer Tolk and Mason Bolkema.
They’ll be a little more inexperienced at the defensive line, but Fredenburg said a lot of the players who will start got some playing time last year.
Fredenburg said he sees a lot of potential “diamonds” in this group. He listed junior linebackers Luke Krempges, Rueben Diehyee, Gabriel Brunz, Connor Gray and senior Preston Huwe as players who could see a lot of time up front.
He also mentioned Jamir Byrd and Kole Knudtson as standouts in the defensive backfield.
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“This is probably the deepest team that we've had where we don't have just a sudden drop off after our stars,” Fredenburg said. “We have a lot of guys that we think can play, and there's going to be a lot of good players that aren't starting.”
The Patriots aren't anticipating changing their system up too much, they’ll be largely the same team in terms of the scheme on both sides of the ball.
“We're still going to be a spread offense,” Fredenburg said. “We're still going to be out front majority of the time … not really be working a lot of stuff, just getting better with the stuff that we normally do. We're going to be us, so we're not going to change, and we're just going to do what we feel we're good at and try to be better at that then people are stopping it.”
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Fredenburg and Schafer said the goal this season, just like it is every season, is to be playing at the Dakota Dome for the final game of the year.
“I think the expectation (or) goal is to win it all,” Schafer said. “But we know we have to take it one game at a time. You can't look forward to those things because then you miss out on the moment.”
The Patriot’s first game will be on Friday, Aug. 25th against Sioux Falls Roosevelt at Howard Wood Field.
Jonathan Fernandez covers high school and college sports for the Argus Leader. Contact him at jfernandez1@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JFERN31.
This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Sioux Falls Lincoln returns explosive offense, looking for diamonds on defense
