Muskies prepare to kick-off spring football season

NEW CONCORD, Ohio – On November 16th, 2019… the Muskingum University football team capped off its 2019 campaign with a 51 – 14 blowout win over Ohio Athletic Conference foe, Capital.

Little did they know at the time, it would be nearly 500 days until they would take the field again.

483 days, to be exact. That’s how many days will have passed between the Capital game and this Friday’s 2021 spring football season opener against Mount Union, due to the conference postponing the 2020 fall sports season to the spring due to the COVID pandemic.

For third year Muskingum Coach Erik Ieuter and the Muskies, opening night can’t come soon enough.

“We’re super excited,” says Ieuter. “We’ve been working extremely hard. The guys have been waiting a long time — almost a year and a half since their last game. So we can’t wait to get out there on Friday night.”

In August, the OAC announced plans to play the then-postponed fall sports during the spring semester. In football, the ten teams of the conference will be split into two divisions, and each team will play a shortened regular season against the four other teams in their division. At the end of the four-game season, the top team from each division will meet to decide the overall OAC Champion. The rest of the conference will be paired up with the other division’s team matching their place in the standings.

Coach Ieuter says that the main goal for the team this season is to continue to improve and build on the success the team saw to close the 2019 season.

“Our main goal is to, every game that we play in, we wanna compete and win the game.” Ieuter says. “That’s certainly something. But we want to continue the upward trajectory of our program, of which we feel that this is the best team, best leadership. Our culture is the best we’ve had in our three years here.”

This year’s Muskies team will be captained by first-year starter, junior quarterback Jordan Garrett. Garrett’s joined by fellow captain, senior lineman Iggy Horvath, plus three senior captains on the defense: linebacker Nehemiah Bowie and defensive backs Brian Brown and Cortez McGinnis. Ieuter says the group is unlike any he’s had in his time at Muskingum.

“Like I said, this is the best leadership that we’ve had by far in our three years here.,” Ieuter says. “I love our captains. They’re voted on by the players so we actually went with five and they’re well deserving. In my years of coaching, I’ve never had five captains so that certainly means we’ve got some really good leaders on this team.”

The 2021 Muskingum spring football season kicks off Friday night against Mount Union at Zanesville High School’s Sulsberger Stadium.