The Augustana football team started the season with a 30-13 win against Simpson College. Coming into the game, expectations from both inside and outside the program have risen after last season’s 8-3 record, which was the program’s most wins in a season since 2005. With the heightened expectations, fifth-year senior Cole Bhardwaj wanted to see if these new expectations would affect how the team plays.
“The big thing was moving on and trying to build upon an eight and three season and ultimately being able to perform and win now with a target on our back,” Bhardwaj said. “Before, it was always ‘We got average Augie,’ but now we’ve got a target on our back as a top three or four team in the conference.”
No matter how successful a team is, it is crucial to constantly try to improve and get better day by day after the season. Even with last season’s success, head coach Steve Bell used the offseason to strengthen and improve the roster.
“We have strengths and weaknesses,” Bell said. “We tried to identify and combat those by going out as hard as possible to get bigger and stronger in the weight room. This league’s a bugger, so you have to be big and strong to win. That’s something that we concentrated on in the winter.”
Senior Mike DiGioia, who was second on the team in rushing yards last season, returns to the backfield. However, instead of creating goals for the whole season before the first game, his goals are directed more towards doing things one week and one game at a time.
“My main goals are to show up every day 100 percent, be physical, and have everyone come together and work as one,” DiGioia said. “I focus more on day-to-day and week-to-week goals, rather than season goals, because you’ll never be able to reach those season goals without the day-to-day small goals.”
Senior Cain Johnson is another key returning player on the Vikings’ offensive side of the ball alongside Bhardwaj. Having a fifth year on the offensive line provides essential experience to help new starters learn the team’s expected style of play.
“That was a big question mark heading into the off-season of what we would do with the offensive line,” Bhardwaj said. “Retaining Cain for a fifth year is awesome, and we’ve got senior Jacob North on the other side, who’s a four-year starter. We’ve got three new guys interior-wise, which is fine, but having Cain back influenced me to return. You could say it calms me down knowing that I have him.”
One thing Bell recognizes as the head coach is the need for consistent play from the team. To improve from last season, they need to play their brand of football and stay on track. He wanted to see that from his team going into the season’s first game.
“Don’t be sporadic and all over the place,” Bell said. “You’re going to have a bad play here or there, but you can’t stay in that very long. We need to make the opponents grind out drives to get them in bad situations where we can get off the field. That’s really what it comes down to for me.”
After the smooth sailing win over Simpson, the Vikings will gear up to face conference foe and nationally ranked Wheaton College on Sept. 21 in Wheaton. DiGioia is one player on the team with experience and knows the intensity of conference games and the need to close them out.
“We have to finish games,” DiGioia said. “We left a lot on the table last year.”