In their inaugural season, Capital City football's freshman and sophomore teams were a combined 12-2.
This fall, the Cavaliers hope to have similar success in their first season as a varsity squad.
"I don't think last year is going to translate at all," Capital City coach Shannon Jolley said. "If anything, I expect Friday nights to be more difficult this year. We're not going to make any excuses about being a year behind other teams, but that's a fact. Not having the spring and part of summer put us back a little bit."
Jolley is entering his second season at the helm after coming over from Jefferson City, where he served as an assistant football coach and high school physical education teacher. Prior to his stint with the Jays, he was the athletic director, strength and conditioning coordinator, physical education department chair, head football coach and head boys track and field coach at Eldon.
However, the buildup to this season has been unlike any other previous in his coaching career.
"In some cases, I think the kids have handled the offseason better than I have," Jolley said. "I'm really proud of them. Kids are normally pretty resilient, and I think they're appreciative to play.
"Our staff has also done a good job of following protocols. You spread your staff out and it's a little hard to make sure everybody's doing their duties, but everybody has been really selfless."
Jolley said like most programs across Missouri, the biggest challenge his team faces is staying healthy amid the COVID-19 pandemic. He said the team has had "some injuries and brushes with the virus."
"The offseason has been good," junior Bahshi Traylor said. "Coach Jolley has prepared us well. He started us with weights and slowly went into full-contact, which was weird at first, but it feels good to be together as a team."
Traylor figures to be one of the Cavaliers' key pieces on offense as a right guard and as a defense tackle.
"He's a selfless player who brings it all the time," Jolley said of Traylor. "It's been fun to be around him; he's got a great personality, great attitude and he's a humble kid. We can consider him our anchor on both sides of the ball."
In preseason camp, Traylor was nominated as the first varsity captain in program history.
"I used to not be a leader," he said. "I'd mess around at practice, but I'm taking it much more serious now to get better. I'm very proud to be a captain and happy to help anybody out while doing my part."
Jolley has already installed his trademark wing-T offense, which he used to guide Eldon to Class 3 District 3 titles in 2012, 2013 and 2017.
"We have great pieces and are pretty explosive," Jolley said. "People tend to call our offense one-dimensional, but really there's a lot of different things we can do out of it. We'll be able to spread the wealth."
Defensively, the Cavaliers plan to run a base 3-4 defense.
Capital City competed last Friday at the Rolla Jamboree in preparation for its season and home opener today against Warrensburg at Adkins Stadium. The Cavaliers begin Central Missouri Activities Conference play with the three Columbia schools - at Battle in Week 2, home against Hickman and at Rock Bridge.
The district showdown against Jefferson City is scheduled for Week 5 at Adkins Stadium, followed by an intra-city meeting at home against Helias.
The Cavaliers then have back-to-back road games against Smith-Cotton and Winnetonka before ending the regular season at home against Kirksville.
"I haven't looked past our first game against Warrensburg," Jolley said. "I expect our guys to play really hard, be tough and work through adversity. I'm really hopeful that our kids will be mentally prepared and mature enough to not get overwhelmed."
"We have to work together as one," Traylor said. "We can't count on one person to score, defend and tackle. We have to pursue everything together."
Capital City may be at a disadvantage when it comes to varsity experience, but Jolley said he expects the fledgling program to enjoy some advantages in the coming years.
"Our coaches got to spend a lot of time with these kids as freshmen and sophomores," he said. "Their retention rate will be extremely valuable, hopefully sooner rather than later. We've built some solid relationships with them, and that will definitely bode well for us in the future."