Another year, another state champion being crowned from the Twin Valley League with the Axtell Eagles winning back-to-back championships in the 8-Man DII class. The league has now won football state titles in 13 of the last 15 years. As for this season, the Eagles are the favorites once again despite losing some players to graduation.

After a disappointing finish to the 2022 season resulting in an upset playoff loss at home in the first round, Clifton-Clyde is bound to bounce back for a strong 2023 season.

Hanover returns a ton of talent after reaching the second round of the playoffs last season and are hoping to go even deeper.

Frankfort is a team that could be sneaky-good this year with a lot of players coming back. The Wildcats played at a really high level at the very end of the season, so they carry a ton of momentum into 2023.

Washington County, Linn, Blue Valley-Randolph and Doniphan West all have chances to play spoilers to the teams projected above them.

In 11-Man, Centralia hopes to remain on top of the league after making it to the semifinal round in Class 1A.

Valley Heights brings back a good portion of their roster from a year ago and is second in our projections with Troy coming in at third.

Onaga shouldn’t be written off by any means with the Buffaloes competing in their second season back in Class 1A.

11-MAN

For a second straight season, the Centralia Panthers were eliminated in the state playoffs by the eventual state champions. This past year it was the St. Mary’s Bears that would upend them on a cold November night in St. Mary’s by a final score of 46-16. Before that game, though, the Panthers didn’t have a single blemish on their schedule. After a perfect regular season and just falling short of a state title, it’s hard to imagine Centralia won’t make significant noise once again in 2023 despite losing some great seniors. The quarterback position will obviously be the biggest thing to put emphasis on. The district and the league are winnable once again for Centralia, but there are some solid teams in both.

Valley Heights made the playoffs in 2022 despite a record of just 2-6 in the regular season. Unfortunately, they lost in the first round at Sedgwick (49-22). Head Coach Cody Trimble enters his third year at the helm and has a record of 6-12 in his first two years. Quarterback Mack Shanks comes back after running the Mustangs’ triple option offense in his first season last year alongside stud running back Jayden DeWalt, who was just shy of a 1,000-yard season. Expect for the Mustangs to make significant improvements on offense, and with more home games this year, Valley Heights has a chance to make some noise in the TVL.

Troy went 8-2 last season after losing just one regular-season game to Centralia by a final score of 20-19. The Trojans’ season ended in the regional round of the playoffs losing to eventual state champion St. Mary’s 26-0. At quarterback, Troy moves on from Reagan Hartman, who was an Honorable Mention All-State and First Team All-TVL. Replacing him is Gannon Bowe, who is a good athlete and hopes to continue a line of great quarterback play that Troy has had over the years. Coach Jasper is looking to keep this Trojans team in their winning ways despite losing 13 total starting positions. There is a lot of turnaround from teams they will be competing with, so it’s possible that they reload quickly and have another great season.

The Onaga Buffaloes should have expectations to take a step forward in 2023 after going 2-7 in 2022. Onaga won their first game of the season last year against McLouth and then would go on to lose seven straight games before finishing with a win over Oskaloosa in a non-playoff game. Onaga will look to have some good numbers heading into the 2023 season with a healthy mix of upperclassmen and underclassmen. Head coach Ben Kolterman is expecting his team to be very competitive this season with a better understanding of the opponents on the schedule.

8-MAN

Axtell finished their football season with a 76-28 state championship victory over Thunder Ridge in a game that was back-and-forth for most of the first half until the Eagles’ offense kicked into full throttle. They will hope to keep their 26-game winning streak alive which has seen them absolutely tear through opposing defenses, and completely dismantle some of the best offenses in the state. Axtell only loses three seniors from that team. Granted, one of them was 8M-DII Offensive Player of the Year Isaac Detweiler. Back-to-back 8M-DII Head Coach of the Year Eric Detweiler enters his 11th season, and he will likely turn to junior Brandon Schmelzle at quarterback. It should be no surprise that Schmelzle isn’t quite as talented in terms of his passing ability, but he was First Team All-State for his efforts on offense, so it’s safe to say the offense will be just fine with him taking over the reins.

Clifton-Clyde's season ended abruptly with a first-round exit in the playoffs at home against Quinter (28-22) after going 7-1 in the regular season. Their only regular season loss was against back-to-back 8M-DII state champion Axtell. Head coach Russ Steinbrock returns to the sidelines for the Eagles for his 24th season. He brings back ten lettermen and seven returning starters on both sides of the ball. Clifton-Clyde’s offense will once again be led by quarterback Trent Long (5’9 165 SR), who comes back after an All-State season. Long led the Eagles in passing, rushing and scoring a year ago, and they will expect big things from him again this year.

The Hanover Wildcats’ 2022 season was up-and-down with the year starting with a three-game losing streak which followed by them winning four of their last five regular season games. Hanover won its Week 9 game against Lakeside-Downs, but they would lose to Canton-Galva in the Sectional round. With four seniors gone from last year’s team, they have some holes to fill, but they bring back a total of 16 lettermen. This Hanover team will continue to be competitive, but they would love to be more than that. If play to their potential and catch some good draws in the playoffs, they have a chance to make a deep run in the postseason.

The Frankfort Wildcats had a rare losing season in 2022 with an overall record of 4-6, but the record isn’t indicative of the level of football this team played. Four of their six losses came against teams that made sectionals in their respective divisions. Last year, quarterback Wes Anderson broke all of Frankfort’s eight-man passing records as a freshman. He went 89-for-166 with 1,367 passing yards and 21 touchdowns. This includes him missing the final two-and-a-half games due to injury. Anderson was named Second Team All-TVL and was also an All-State Honorable Mention. The Frankfort Wildcats will hope this will be a season where they make vast improvements and make a deep run in the playoffs. They will need to tighten their talent gap with some of the teams they were blown out by last season.

The Washington County Tiger football team made a big step up in 2022 with a 5-4 season. This comes one year after a rough 2-7 2021 season. Although the season came with a lot of successes, it ended with a blowout loss in the first round of the playoffs against a Hill City team that made it all the way to Sub-State. The Tigers lose some key pieces to graduation including Payton LeDuc, Trenton Zenger, Jaydon Otott, Quentin Rhoades, Matthew Kern and Aidan Goeckel. Even though Washington County loses a lot of personnel, this is a team that doesn’t want to be known for what they have done in the past. Instead, they want to write their own history in 2023 and prove that they’re a good football team.

Linn finished the 2022 season with a record of 3-6, going 2-4 against Twin Valley League teams and 2-3 in district play. The Bulldogs return seven starters on both sides of the ball this season with head coach Trevor Kuhlman returning for his third season. Gavin Turk enters his third and final year as a starter and his second year at quarterback. Last season, he had flashes of great play with some high-scoring games. Turk also led the Bulldogs in rushing. I would expect for this much more mature Linn team to see fewer blowouts, more wins and a more competitive product in 2023.

The Blue Valley-Randolph Rams matched their 2021 record in 2022 at 2-7. Blue Valley-Randolph had some high-scoring efforts that still landed them on the wrong side of the scoreboard with three of their losses coming when they still scored 28+ points. They have a new head coach for the first time in a decade and a half with Quinton Cravens taking over for longtime head coach Matt Schreiber. He acquires five returning starters on both sides of the ball and 15 total returning lettermen. Blue Valley-Randolph has some pieces that can get them above the two-win hump, but they have a lot of things to figure out. The Twin Valley League is a gauntlet so it will be interesting to see where they end up in the mix.

Doniphan West will enter the 2023 season with a new head coach. John Paolino takes over the Mustangs program and will look to improve on a 2-7 season in 2022.  The Mustangs will have plenty of new names scattered across both sides of the ball but will have a few key returners. They return three starters on offense and two on defense. Cooper Eberly will make the jump from wide receiver to quarterback this season. The defense will go up against some of the top talent at the 8-Man level and will have to improve if they want to see more wins in 2023.