While Ottawa struggled last season, eighth-year head coach Chad Gross has a dozen and a half players back in key spots and many more with limited or no experience who will be battling for spots left open due to graduation.

“We have a lot of returning kids, 18 I believe, and also a lot of those kids can play a number of different spots for us. We’re going to have a lot of competition within the group,” said Gross. “It’s a little like putting a puzzle together. We feel we have a lot of good pieces to that puzzle, now it’s just finding where they go to not only make the kids better, but our team better.””

The Pirates finished 1-8 overall — the lone win in Week 2 over longtime rival Streator — and 0-5 in Interstate 8 Conference play.

On offense, senior Mark Munson (77-131, 960 yards, 5 IN

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