TIPTON - Last season, the Tipton Cardinals finished with a 5-6 record and won their first round game of the Class 1 District 5 Tournament, defeating Santa Fe 32-20 before losing in the semifinals to Sweet Springs 12-0.
This year, Tipton head coach Tony Braby said the Cardinals are aiming to improve upon that record, but that is not the only goal the team has this year.
"After that, the next goal would be conference champs, district champs, and make the state playoffs," Braby said.
The Cardinals lost some quality players from last year's squad and have only one returning offensive lineman. But, Braby said the team has a lot of skill position players returning this year. The experience of getting to the second round of districts will help the players who came back.
"A lot of my returning skill players got playing time in the second round of districts," Braby said. "Any time you can go past the regular season a game or two; that's just more practice time you get and more experience to deal with in the playoffs.
"It leaves a bitter taste in their mouths that they did not get to go farther, so it sets a goal for them and gives them something to works towards."
Heading into this season, Braby said the team had 42 players for the first week of practice, 13 more than the Cardinals had on the roster in 2018.
"In fact it has allowed us to get four other senior offensive linemen," Braby said. "So we went from being a really inexperienced line to a mature, physical offensive line at this point in time. They will get stronger as the season goes with the more games they get to play."
The Cardinals bring back their starting quarterback, junior Blake Fischer. The team is also bringing back receivers Cooper Allee and Chase Derboven, both seniors. There will also be senior slot backs Francisco Xiao and Austin Pace.
"We've got good skill kids there," Braby said. "We look really good on paper right now. We had a really good outing at the Jamboree."
Braby said it will be the second year the team runs the air-raid offense.
"Which is basically trying to find the holes in the defense and throw the ball wherever the defenders are not," Braby said. "We are going to be a really good 50/50 run, pass maybe even a little bit more pass to run, and I think that will put a lot of pressure on the defenses."
On defense, Braby said the Cardinals will mix up the fronts between even and odd to confuse the opposition.
"We want to be aggressive, we got some really good defensive backs that are veterans and seniors," Braby said. "If we want to do some man-to-man and bring some more pressure with the remaining players, that will be an advantage for us. We were pretty darn strong in defense last year. I think we are going to bring to the table a bunch of defensive and offensive players to help us out this year."
The Cardinals will go on the road tonight to face St. Paul Lutheran: Concordia to start the season. Kickoff is at 7 p.m.
Braby said St. Paul Lutheran: Concordia has a new coach, CJ Gifford, who previously helped coach football at Lafayette County.
Braby said the Saints will have plenty of size this season. Tipton won last year's meeting 30-16.
"They come right at you and the size is kind of a concern. So we are hoping that our passing and our speed will play in the game and hopefully allow us to be successful," Braby said.