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After what has been a whirlwind of a past couple of years for the Manchester football program, the Squires will head into the 2025 campaign with some form of stability finally on their side.
Head coach Brian Enyeart, who took over the varsity job last year to become Manchester’s third coach in as many seasons, is back for his second go around. He says that something as simple as having one year of experience under his belt can make a world of difference when the season rolls around.
“Last year we changed everything from the ground up, so we knew there was going to be some growing pains in some spots and we cut the kids some slack because of it,” Enyeart said. “This year, that’s not the case. The attention to detail is high, we’re holding them more accountable. We’re learning new plays quite often in practice, while last year we weren’t implementing new things until week four or five.”
Despite having to learn their third new system in as many years, the Squires were able to put together a five-win season for the second year in a row in 2024, a feat that had not happened since the 2001-02 seasons. Perhaps making that feat more impressive was reaching the five-win threshold in spite of suffering injuries to a plethora of key players over the course of the season.
While last year’s injury bug was one of the worst he’s ever seen, Enyeart is confident that the adversity the team went through last year, as well as the “next man up” mentality they developed, will play to their advantage in the long run.
“We had 14 seniors last year, and by week three we had maybe eight healthy ones. Because of that, you had a ton of underclassmen getting experience they never would otherwise, and I think that’s valuable,” he said. “Everybody has to be ready. We have guys that can play multiple positions so we can move them around if need be. It’s football, injuries are going to happen, but I feel like we’re a lot more prepared for it this time around.”
Manchester will return a fair share of production from last year’s team, including senior quarterback Dallas Martin, who did not start last season under center, but thanks to the aforementioned injury bug, found himself as the Squire QB for a good chunk of the year. Behind him in the backfield will be junior Maddux Greer and senior captain Reiss Gaerte. While most of the team’s offense will revolve around the option, Manchester has an outside weapon in senior split end Eli Metzger if they decide to go for a chunk play.
Heading into his third season as a varsity player, Gaerte is ready to take on the leadership role that comes with being a captain.
“There’s a lot of young guys on this team that look up to [the seniors], and I know coach expects us to get on them if we need to,” he said. But it’s our job to make them better and prepare them and that’s what we’ll do.”
There are nine seniors on this year’s Squire team, with three of them, Braxton Miller, Sammy Jackson and Dyllin Gwynn playing on both the offensive and defensive line. With all the pieces seemingly coming together, the players have set their sights on some big goals for this season.
“We want to win the conference. We were 5-5 last year and that was our best record here in a while, but we want to do better than that,” Metzger said. “We want to keep improving every single season.”
“Our sophomore year, we went on a deep run to make it to the sectional championship game, and I really want to make it back there,” Gaerte said. “I think we have what it takes to make that possible.”
Regarding the hopes of a sectional championship, Enyeart shares that same goal with his players. For him, it’s personal.
“The last time this school won a sectional championship was in 1991, my senior year. I’ve been preaching to the guys that I’m sick of seeing that number. I want to see 2025,” he said. “If we play our game, we should be right there battling for a conference and sectional title.”
The Squires will face their first test in the Three Rivers Conference in the first week of the season, opening up on the road at Northwestern this Friday. The Tigers are coming off of a 9-2 campaign that saw the team from Kokomo finish tied with Rochester for second in the TRC with a 7-1 conference record. The two teams opened the 2024 season against each other in North Manchester, a game the Tigers won 19-14.
“It’s tough to start things off with a conference game, so we will have to be ready to play some great football right away. It’ll set the tone,” Enyeart said. “Everybody knows you want to be playing your best football at the end of the season, but we want to be playing it each and every single week.”
