Dumbfounding.
That’s the word Jason Catron finally settles on when asked to describe the rapid evolution of the Falcon football program.
Undefeated seasons are rare enough, but how about the Falcons’ 13-0 record on the heels of just one winning season in the previous decade? Or playing for the Class 3A state championship when the previous time Falcon was in the playoffs was 1992? Or how about a burgeoning town and school, where football once was an afterthought, becoming infected with Falcons fever everywhere from the local Safeway to the IHOP?
“This senior class were sophomores when I took over,” said Catron, who began at Falcon in 2002 as an assistant coach and marked his first year as head coach by starting most of those underclassmen, hoping it would pay off.
“They stuck together,” he said. “They didn’t give up. They actually made a pact with themselves that they wanted to be the class that changed Falcon football and they wanted to start the dynasty for years to come.”
They have changed everything, despite wrestling with the lure of transferring to far more successful programs around Colorado Springs.
On Saturday, top-seeded Falcon will host No. 10 Berthoud (11-2) and attempt to win the school’s first athletics state title, although the school has won in cheerleading and pompoms.
Behind a trio of talented and distinctive running backs, a stout offensive line running a new zone-blocking scheme and a nasty defense, the Falcons’ mercurial rise from the gritty South Metro League has come via blowouts, nail-biters and gut-check rallies.
Oddly enough, the seniors have been here before. Four years ago this group was undefeated in the regular season and lost in the championship.
“As a group in eighth grade we were good,” senior lineman Lucas Musseau said. “We saw every class before us, the good players leaving, and we said it’s not going to happen to our class.”
A few standout players would transfer, however. Linebacker Guy Sargent went to Fountain-Fort Carson and speedy running back Keenen Ballage went to Rampart. Sargent stayed, but Ballage returned his sophomore year.
“I don’t know what, but something just drew me back to Falcon,” said Ballage, who has rushed for a team-leading 2,339 yards and 24 touchdowns this season.
Ballage, a state track champion in the 100 meters, compensates for any lack of size with elusive speed. Senior Zach Roscoe is a little bigger and not as fast, but hits the holes with abandon. And then there is the prototypical bruising fullback with one of the better full names in prep football — Vahn Ivan-Wolfgar Plambeck.
Add in senior quarterback Cade Schulze — a threat to run or throw — and the Falcons have rolled up more than 3,800 yards on the ground behind tackles Musseau and Brenden Condon and center James Ausmus.
“The biggest thing has been the coaching staff,” said Plambeck, citing the zone-blocking scheme of ffensive coordinator Cameron Keller, one of the Falcons’ five new assistant coaches this season.
Musseau, who has 22½ sacks and 107 tackles this season, anchors the defensive front along with fellow defensive end Eric Perez.
It’s all a beautiful, new history for a program with a homely past.
In the 10 seasons prior, the Falcons went 23-75. They had 20-game losing streaks twice in that span and had three seasons in which they didn’t win a game. Their lone winning season during that stretch came in 2000, when they went 5-4 in Class 2A.
Catron, who grew up in Montana and played at Dickinson State (N.D.), said it was an “eye-opening” experience joining the program, but he found it generated a steely resolve.
“I remember thinking that it’s going to take someone to eventually turn it around,” Catron said. “Someone has to step up and say, ‘Enough is enough.’ ”
Falcon’s growing fan base has come along for the ride, from the huge Week 6 victory at Pueblo County to the three-hour trek to Alamosa. And that’s where Catron had one of those surreal moments, when he got off the bus and saw Falcon fans tailgating in the parking lot.
“I’m just looking at this going, ‘Are you kidding me?’ ” he said.
It’s dumbfounding.
