Can anyone help the city of Galion forget the 2002 High School Football season? Galion fan's are sure hoping new head coach Jake O'Rourke can help ease the pain of a 1-9 2002 campaign. Well Fear not Tiger fan's as things have already improved tremendously without a single regular season snap taking place. When O'Rourke took the coaching job he came in with only 27 kids out for football in the entire high school. Since taking over, the Tiger program is up to 52 kids throughout all four grades which is an significant improvement in such a short period of time. O'Rourke is coming from Springfield Shawnee after spending 9 years as the head coach and leading the program to a 51-40 mark during that span. Before taking the Shawnee position he helped awaken a Vinton County team that had numerous losing season's taking them to a 48-13 mark during his 6 years as head coach. This season could be a tall order though with many talented players not returning to the gridiron and choosing to focus on another sport. Inexperience is an issue with only 29 of the 52 kids being in the top three grades and after losing 8 starters on each side of the ball to either graduation or another sport. The Tigers open against a tough Ashland team who finished 6-4 a year ago and expects to compete with Mansfield Sr. for the Ohio Heartland Conference title this year. The Tiger's are expected to run a multiple set offense with everything from a shotgun to a wishbone offense. On defense they'll show multiple looks to try to confuse opposing quarterbacks. This might not be the year that Galion starts making a climb back up the NOL ladder but one can only think that its only a matter of time if the coaching staff can continue selling the program and new system to the players.

Media's 2003 Predicted League Finish :
8th

Passing: Jason Boyer
4 comp, 13 att., 40 yds, 0 td's, 0 int's

Rushing: Paul Prosser
63 att., 321 yds., 3 td's

Receiving: Paul Prosser
4 rec., 39 yds., 0 td's

Scoring: Paul Prosser
1 td, 6 pts.

Punting: No One Returning

Kicking: No One Returning

Tackles: Paul Prosser
35 tackles

Sacks: Paul Prosser
6 sacks

Interceptions: C.O'Leary, Blubaugh, N.O'Leary, Durtschi and Moore
each with 1 int

Kickoff returns: Aaron Benedict
2 ret., 20.0 avg.

Punt returns: Jason Boyer
1 ret., 1.0 avg.

Written by XBellevueplayar

Defensive line:
  There will be two Irish boys patrolling the defensive end positions for the Tigers on Friday nights in Nate and Charles O'Leary. Both saw action last season with Nate accounting for 9 tackles and one fumble recovery while Charles tallied 6 tackles and also one fumble recovery. Senior Paul Prosser moves from his linebacker position to lineup at nose-guard. 6'4 190 pound sophomore Ricky Rinehart and 6'1 220 pound sophomore Troy Bright will man the defensive tackle spots. Senior Brian Moore will try to impress the coaches during practice to see time at the defensive end spots.

Linebackers:
  With the move of Prosser to nose-guard and the graduation of Kent Keesee the Tigers will need to replace 124 tackles from this position a year ago. Juniors Aaron Benedict and Ben Blubaugh along with sophomore Jimmy Fryer look to be the main stays in coach O'Rourke's new defensive look. 5'10 160 pound sophomore Jason Wagner looks to push for playing time as well.

Secondary:
  The Galion defensive backfield will look to improve on its 5th ranked defense from 2002 while starting a new player at each spot. 5'10 175 pound senior Jason Boyer looks poised to step into a starting roll at one of the safety positions. 6'3 155 pound Bobby Nicholls has secured a corner spot while 5'10 160 pound senior James Glover and 5'10 175 pound Josh Thomas looks to round out the starting secondary.

Special teams:
  The Tigers kicking game is uncertain at this point with the two front runners being junior Bobby Nicholls and sophomore Matt Shipley. Sophomore Troy Bright is pushing senior Josh Thomas for the punting duties. Aaron Benedict returned 2 kickoffs for a total of 40 yards last season and looks to be the key return man.

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"How They Look"

- An opposing NOL team's head coach sizes up the Tigers

"It's hard to get a good grasp on them, it was obviously a very tough year down there not winning a league game, and now they have a new coach with a new system to learn. I think they could start off a little slow, but they do have some nice returnee's on offense. You can bet the kids are going to be hungry though, no one wants to go through a season like that again. I don't know much about their new coach over there, but he will have them ready I am sure. They will have an improved season over in Galion."