2023 Record: 1-8 overall, 0-7 in Flyway (8th)
Did not qualify for postseason.
Key Losses: QB Zach Seidschlag, WR Jackson Goldapske, RB/LB Ya’liez Reed, WR Connor Groll, WR/DB Gavin Simon
Key Returners: QB Alijah Reed, RB Dimitri Reed, RB Jesse Haendel, OL Diego Gomez, OL Landon Barber, OL Alexxander Skaar.
North Fond du Lac snapped a 53-game losing streak last year with a week two win against Ripon.
It was the only time the Orioles hit the 20-point mark all season, while giving up an average of 46.4 points per game in yet another challenging season for the program.
Although this season brings with it a lot of question marks because most of the production left via graduation, it's hard not to get excited about the energy that coach Taylan Ybarra has brought to the program.
"We're still building big time," Ybarra said. "We're building the structure from the weight room to how we operate in practice. That stuff has never been done here. No offense to the last coaches, but there hasn't been a lot of structure.
"We're moving in the right direction."
Last season, NFDL had the second-ranked quarterback in terms of yards per game in Zach Seidschlag, who threw for 1,169 yards and eight touchdowns. Abe Maurer also played QB in five games, but he was a senior as well.
Ybarra said this year there has been a competition between senior Alijah Heidl and freshman Ben Wirkus. Heidl was named a team captain even though it is his first year playing football.
Wirkus has a baseball background and Ybarra said he has plenty of arm talent, it will just be about getting some of the football-specific details ironed out.
Heidl will start the opening game on Thursday night against Dominican, but Ybarra expects both QBs to get time. Heidl said he thinks the team will be ready.
"I feel like the coaches are really pushing us and making us work more," Heidl said. "I wasn't here last year, but from what I've heard, they've upped the work so that we don't get tired because we don't have the most players.
"They've really been pushing conditioning."
Ya’liez Reed, another graduate, led a running attack that struggled. Reed ran for 262 yards and one TD. The entire team averaged fewer than 30 yards per game.
NFDL hopes to build on Reed's production in part with his younger brother, Dimitri, who played receiver last season and is the other captain this year.
Dimitri Reed said he hopes he can not only fill the shoes left by Ya'liez, but his goal is to even outperform his big brother's marks. Dimitri also said he feels blessed to have gotten to look up to Ya'liez while playing sports, where he has been a mentor.
"My big brother’s been my role model since I was little so I’ve always looked up to him," Reed said. "Watching him do things in sports, I feel like, has made me become a better player because I get to watch him fail and learn from it and then do it better myself."
The Orioles will also have Jesse Haendel in the backfield, who started several games in 2023. On the line, NFDL welcomes back Diego Gomez at center, Landon Barber at right tackle and Alexxander Skaar.
In addition to other losses, 92 percent of the receiving yards from last year left with graduation, including one of the best receviers in the Flyway in Jackson Goldapske. Ybarra said he hopes that the Orioles can be a little more balanced this season.
"Best case scenario would be 50/50," Ybarra said. "Last year we were about 80/20 because we had a good quarterback and good receivers. In the past, I was a QB coach at the college level, so I'm kind of a throw-it-around, offensive-minded coach; if we have the guy who can throw it a little bit, it'll be similar to last year."
The program has seemed to be heading in the right direction in the past few years. Ybarra said he and his staff are in it for the long haul.
"We don't plan on leaving any time soon," Ybarra said. "That's a big change for here because it has been a revolving door.
"When these kids that are freshmen and sophomores get to their junior and senior years, we should be moving at a pretty high level. Hopefully in return that means winning more games and not being the bottom team in the conference."
Both Alijah and Reed said there has been a renewed energy that Ybarra has brought into the program, including his expectations in the weight room. Ybarra said that is where the program has the most catching up to do in the conference.
The Orioles had their best attendance in a decade this past summer as they prepared for the 2024 season. Reed said that has just become the expectation within the program now.
"Showing up in the weight room everybody wants to see each other get better this year," Reed said. "In the past it’s been you go in the weight room and it’s the olderclassmen who would pick on the underclassmen because they couldn’t lift as much. It’s a lot more support now and I feel like that’s because Coach Ybarra has standards."
The schedule once again has some games that the Orioles could win. The program is up to more than 30 players, which is more than last season and Ybarra believes the number will continue to grow.
He said that at the end of the year, he wants to look back on a season in which his team was competitive for all four quarters.
"That's what we're preaching right now: we compete in everything," Ybarra said. "We compete in practice, we compete in the weight room, we compete in every single thing we do. Our kids don't know how to win so we're teaching them to win from within.
"Our big saying right now is 'Winners don't whine.' In the past here, there's been a lot of whining that we always lose. Hopefully in the near future, they're winners and they reflect and say, 'Yeah, our coaches were right.'"
Reed, who has been in the football program since seventh grade, said he thinks that there are better days right around the corner in NFDL, where he believes the administration has bought in and given them hope.
"A lot of things are different," Reed said. "Not only Coach Ybarra but our principal and our new staff in general, they have put a lot of work into our sports program and just our school in general. I feel like it gave a lot of kids in North Fond du Lac, well it gave me hope that we could be a winning team.
"We could be a school that people look at like “oh that’s a good school” like in the past it hasn’t been like that."
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