At FHS, the football team offers three levels of competitive play. The varsity team who gets all the media attention and packs the stadiums under the Friday night lights each week. The junior varsity, “JV,” team plays the morning after at 10:00 am, and last but certainly not least, the freshman team who also kicks off at 10:00 am on Saturday’s. 

    Those packed stadiums under the lights will be the reality for these players soon. 

    “Growing up as a kid all I wanted to do was play out there on that field,” freshman linebacker Camden Funk said. “Seeing that crowd chanting and being loud.” 

    In 6a football, the speed of the game under those lights can be quite intimidating, even at the freshman level. 

    “As soon as our first game [we played], I noticed how much faster defenses can run to the ball, ” freshman wide receiver Hudson Bell said. 

     While the defense may be running faster to the ball compared to junior high, they have a lot more schematically to process. 

     “In junior high you [are] just looking to knock someone’s head off,” Funk said. “When you are a freshman it is a lot different because you have so many keys [to read].” 

     As one could imagine, when a team goes 7-2 on the season, the players will have quite the variety of favorite games and moments.
    “Franklin Central [because] we won and it was the first time in a couple weeks that our offense was able to put up multiple touchdowns,” Bell said. 

     For Funk, nostalgia factored into his choice. 

“Avon because we were on a grass field and it just brought back so many memories of us like we were little kids playing on the grass fieldsm” Funk said.

    Those grass fields hold some weight for local Fishers and HSE football players. Now rivalry you see on friday nights often goes back to the rec league days of playing in the Fishers-HSE recreational youth football league at mudsock fields. 

    “I am most excited for the mudsock games,” Bell said.