“Win.”

That’s the word Bud Rowley, head coach of Oxford High School’s varsity football team, used to begin and end his preseason interview.

“Win.”

That’s the goal as the Wildcats began practicing on their blue turf bright and early Monday morning in anticipation of the 2019 season opener, a 7 p.m. away game against the Romeo Bulldogs on Friday, Aug. 30.

“Win.”

That’s what Oxford wants to do as the team looks to build on last season’s success and go as far as possible.

Playing in the Oakland Activities Association (OAA) Red Division, one of the toughest divisions in the state, the Wildcats finished 7-2 in the regular season. Along the way, they defeated powerhouse teams like Romeo and Clarkston. Oxford then went 1-1 in the playoffs, thrashing Davison before falling to Lapeer on Nov. 3.

Instead of sulking after losing in district finals, the Wildcats did what they always do – they went right back to work, preparing mentally and physically for next season.

“We got beat by Lapeer on a Friday and the following Tuesday, we had 35 guys in the weight room,” Rowley said. “And it hasn’t ended. We keep coming and coming.”

The seniors on the 2018 squad “set the bar pretty high,” according to Rowley, and now, the teammates they left behind “want to climb higher.”

“They want to be district champs,” he said.

Rowley believes this year’s team can accomplish great things.

“We have the tools. We have the players. We have the coaches. We have the ready-to-go attitude. We’re fine,” he said.

To Rowley, attitude is the most important thing because it’s “99 percent of life.”

“If you’ve got a good attitude, you’re going to be successful,” he said. “They want to play football. They want to succeed. They want to be winners.”

The 2019 team has “a lot of rookies,” according to Rowley, and by rookies, he means players who didn’t start at least two or three games last season.

He said these players were “stars” at the junior varsity and freshman levels, “but (they) haven’t been in the fire yet.”

Rowley referred to the varsity level as “the big show” because the speed is faster, the hitting is harder, the competition is more intense and there’s a need for greater focus and maturity.

The captains

To help keep the team in line and lead players both on and off the field, the coach is depending on his four senior captains – Drew Carpenter, Austin Penzien, Matthew Pullman and Nathan Call.

“Those four guys are going to have to blaze a trail,” Rowley said.

The coach talked a little about each captain:

• “Matt Pullman is a great athlete. (He’s) got great speed. He started every game in the secondary, played some on the offense, has great vision. He’s going to play on both sides of the ball.”

• “Nathan Call is not very big, but he’s a player. He can catch the ball, run great routes, plus he can play in the secondary and do a great job.”

• “Austin Penzien is a beast. He’s 237 (pounds) and you could hit him in the head with a baseball bat and he’d just blink at you. He’s plays offensive tackle and defensive tackle, and he dominates.”

• “Drew Carpenter is a bear. He’s an outstanding tailback, outstanding quarterback. He can be an outstanding wideout. He plays in the secondary. He’s 200 pounds . . . He’s the rally guy. He’s the guy that puts a little spark into us because he’s very skilled. He can do everything. He can run back punts. He can run back kickoffs. The kid’s a football player. That’s why he’s started every game since he’s been a sophomore.”

No easy games

Rowley and his team have their work cut out for them this season as they face Romeo, Rochester Adams, Bloomfield Hills, Lake Orion, Clarkston, Stoney Creek, Southfield Arts and Tech, West Bloomfield and Oak Park.

“There’s not a weak team on that schedule,” he said.

Rowley sees that as a positive thing because he firmly believes playing tough teams makes his team tougher.

“That’s what I want,” he said.

The coach talked a little about some of Oxford’s opponents.

He’s looking forward to another crack at Adams after the Highlanders beat the Wildcats 17-8 last year.

“They partied on our field after they beat us. That sticks in my mind,” Rowley said.

He knows West Bloomfield and Oak Park will be battles because the former “has been in the paper at least once a week,” while the latter has some of the top players in Oakland County.

As for Lake Orion and Clarkston, Rowley said the same thing about both teams, “Don’t care for them. They don’t care for us.”

MHSAA’s new contact rules

As always Rowley is pumped up for the 2019 season, but the only thing he’s not thrilled with are the Michigan High School Athletic Association’s (MHSAA) new contact rules for high school football.

According to an MHSAA press release issued on May 8, programs are being limited to “no more than six hours of full-pads collision contact per week during the preseason and no more than 30 minutes of collision contact during a week of in-season (after games begin) practice.”

Collision is defined by the MHSAA as “contact at game speed, with the execution of full tackles at a competitive pace, taking players to the ground.”

When asked his opinion of the new rules, Rowley replied, “It’s terrible. It’s awful.”

He finds it insulting that the MHSAA seems to think football coaches aren’t smart enough or care enough about their players to safely manage the way their teams practice.

“They make us out like we haven’t got a brain. They make us out to be ignorant,” Rowley said. “We’ve got a brain. We’re not going to line up and knock the hell out of each other every day.”

Rowley said he and his fellow Oxford coaches would never do anything to jeopardize the safety of their players or hurt the team’s chances during the season by running practices that result in injuries.

“We can’t beat each other up (in practice) because of our schedule,” he noted. “We’re playing great people. You can’t play a great team if you’ve got three or four kids hurt . . . I don’t want anybody to get hurt.”

Rowley said “concussions (are) a concern” and they “should be a concern” in sports, but he feels football coaches are more than capable of managing their players’ safety and incorporating new ideas to help ensure it without the MHSAA stepping in and telling them what to do.

“They just think we walk around with our heads in the sand,” he said.

That being said, Oxford will abide by the new rules.

“Football coaches, we adapt. We adapt to everything (from new equipment to parents’ concerns). We’ll adapt to (the MHSAA’s) silly rules,” Rowley said. “Whatever they demand from us or whatever they want us to do, we will (do it) because that’s what football coaches do . . . It’s not going to get in our way at all . . . We will adapt to all the rules, all the regulations and to the new ideas of coaching football and playing football.”

Rowley wishes the MHSAA would treat all sports equally. “They scrutinize football big time,” he said. “They ought to scrutinize basketball and wrestling and volleyball like they do football, (but) they don’t.”