The boys in orange and blue are back this year andare determined to come out stronger than ever. During this offseason  the COS football team has gained new and young players from all around the central valley.

“They are a good bunch of kids, they work hard, and they are very talented”, said head coach Robert Dougherty.

After last season’s of 4-6 record, the Giants look to improve this year. This season, COS has plenty of veteran players returning.

“We have 17 returning players from last year” said coach Dougherty.

There goal this year has been the same for all the other teams in the league.

“We expect to win the conference this year and play in the Nor Cal Championship” said coach Dougherty.

During practice players have been working on increasing their speed.

“Offense has improved a lot on speed, and the defense has also improved in many positions,” said Dougherty

One thing the team struggled with last season was the depth of positions on the team. During practice this issue has been worked on and team is expecting to not have that problem again this season. But, certainly the football team has increased the level of speed on defense and offense. There are two stand out players on defense to watch out for this year, Cornerback Steven Nelson and  Defensive End Claudell Lewis.

“They are very talented,” said coach Dougherty.  Both Lewis and Nelson started on defense during the home opener vs. Reedley College on Sept 1.

Freshmen Miguel Rivas is the quarterback for the freshmen team and he said “we will be pretty good”. Rivas acknowledges the defense when he said “offense is looking ok, not as good as defense though.”

So come out and support the COS Football team when they play home games at the Mineral King Bowl!