Hobart quarterback Riley Johnston thinks this could be the year.
“We just keep getting better and better every day,” he said. “Soon we’ll get to the point of being a championship team. That’s the plan — to win a state championship.”
That isn’t just bluster.
The Brickies (11-3), ranked No. 3 in the preseason by the Post-Tribune, lost 29-24 to East Noble in a Class 4A semistate last season. The Brickies jumped out to a 17-0 lead in that game and had a chance to win it in the final minutes.
The good news for Hobart is the heart of that team returns.
That includes Johnston, a three-year starter. He completed 74 of 143 passes for 1,233 yards and nine touchdowns last season.
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Defensively, the Brickies are outstanding. They pitched five shutouts last season and return eight starters.
Zach Vode, a 6-foot-3 senior wide receiver/cornerback who committed to Western Michigan, and Bobby Babcock, a 6-foot, 220-pound senior linebacker who committed to Illinois State, both return. Vode had 44 receptions and five interceptions last season. Babcock had 15 sacks.
Haidyn McLamb, a senior defensive lineman who had five sacks, and junior Ammen Hicks-Jones also are back.
The biggest losses are Matthew Benton, the 2019 Post-Tribune Defensive Player of the Year, and running back DJ Lipke.
Hobart coach Craig Osika also has to fill some holes in the offensive line, and it’s possible that Babcock will spend time at running back.
Like every coach, Osika isn’t quite sure whether his team is ready to play. The coronavirus pandemic has scrambled the timeline for getting a view of what a team needs to refine.
Hobart skipped its scheduled scrimmage with Valparaiso on Aug. 14 because it just wasn’t ready. The Brickies are still in the evaluation process for some positions. That’s a problem they don’t usually have to worry about when August arrives.
Still, Osika knows expectations are high. Hobart has four state titles, and this season long has been pegged to be a special one.
“We know what we had coming back,” Osika said. “We have some work to do on the offensive line. We are probably bigger than we’ve ever been since I’ve been here. We are going to have to have some guys step up (on the line) without varsity experience.”
Osika said Johnston is good enough to play college football, perhaps for a program like Indiana State.
It’s not going to happen, though.
Johnston intends to compete in the pole vault in college. His father and grandfather were pole vaulters at Purdue. He was ranked No. 1 in the event in Indiana entering the spring season after finishing third at the 2018 state meet. He was vaulting 17 feet in practice before the pandemic wiped out the season.
“COVID robbed him of a state title,” Osika said.
Johnston, who has plenty of receiving talent around him, said he’s looking forward to the Brickies’ season opener against Chesterton on Friday.
“It might take some time to get the chemistry down, but we should just keep getting better,” he said.
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