With one game left in the season, Grinnell College’s football team is set on finishing strong and building on the momentum from their recent historic victory against Knox College, marking the first win over Knox in over a decade.
This victory follows years of rebuilding the football program after the season was canceled in 2019 due to the lack of healthy players on the team. At the time, the team was down 28 out of 39 players, they lost their season opener, 0-28, their second game, 0-44 and their third game, where they thought they could be more competitive, 3-42. After the senior players began a conversation on whether it was worth it to continue the season, the College announced it would be cut short.
From scrapping the 2019 season to restarting the program after COVID-19 under Brent Barnes, head football coach, the team has worked to compete against teams that didn’t cut their football program midseason. In an email to The S&B, Barnes wrote that while it has taken time to revive the program from its “rough shape,” he’s proud of how it has progressed in the last four years.
“I believe this is the best team the program has had in the last 10 years, certainly since I’ve been here. By almost any metric (offense/defense/special teams) we are better,” Barnes wrote. He added that despite the improvements, the team has yet to translate that into more wins. However, he wrote that their success against Knox and the seniors beating Lawrence for all four years is a good start.
“I think, you know, our record doesn’t show it, but we are 10,000 times better than we were in my freshman year,” said Henry Baird `25, quarterback, echoing Barnes’ sentiment. “This is the healthiest the team’s ever been, and it’s also sweet seeing how much it has grown over the past four years … I wouldn’t trade my experience here for anything.”
For Keaton Fitzgerald `26, defensive back, the team has noticeably improved with their confidence on the field. “Every time we go against these bigger teams that are generally probably better than us, we would just lay down and let them take the win,” he said. “This year, I think we’re actually stepping up and competing with them.”
Barnes wrote that this kind of commitment to the game was shown against Knox, as well as in most of the games this season. “We stopped their running game and we ran the ball … we hope to continue that … into next season,” he wrote.
As the seniors close out their time on the football team, they’ve set a standard of leadership that the underclassmen look forward to continuing. “The seniors are very relentless,” said Charlie Greene `28, tight end. “They’ve been through a lot and you can kind of see that they’re willing to do whatever it takes. I feel like I can learn a lot from that … they’re just good mentors.”
Marcus Sung `28, running back, also said that working hard in the offseason and growing closer “with his brothers” will be a crucial part of the process of stepping into being leaders on the team.
The team remains optimistic about the future despite others’ potential doubts on their ability. “When I was deciding where I wanted to go to college, people did look at the schedule and our wins, losses and stuff like that, but just seeing the growth over the last couple of years, it becomes apparent that we are not the same team,” Greene said. He added that when looking at the statistics on rushing yards, passing and defense, they show that they’re a much better team that has made some improvements.
Sam Eaton `27, running back, agreed with Greene, believing that the team has the talent to be competitive against other teams.
“Football is an unforgiving sport,” he said. “You’re not always going to match up [with other teams], but I think we’ve shown this year that we can play with pretty much anybody in the conference, which I don’t know if I could say in years past.”
