Seniors re-establish 'culture' at MHS

Nov. 29—Muskogee football coach Travis Hill says the 21 seniors playing their final game on Friday have paved the way.

Hill, who's getting his squad ready for the Class 6AII championship game against defending champion Stillwater, said the Class of 2024 has the leadership qualities he looks for on a football field.

"I think they're all smart enough to know it's an honor," Hill said. "I think they're very excited about it and they respect the situation. Typically that comes whenever you've earned something."

Hill also pointed that the senior class had very little history to draw upon.

"These guys here didn't have the legacies, you have to go all the way back to 1986," he said. "Whenever you're 16 and 17, you're not gonna go back 30 years to find what's going on — that's kids in general. So for them not to have the direction and to have to find it by themselves to get to this point, I think they really respect what's going on and what they're doing and they're very appreciative of where they're at."

Also, typically there are players that get all the publicity and players that get very little to none. The 2023 Roughers are no exception.

"There's a kid like Kaleb Huston — our starting left guard," Hill said. "He's a two-way player for us, a program kid, that's made himself a great football player. Treyveon Houston, our starting mike linebacker, he gets some attention — what he does for us getting us lined up on defense and understanding what we're going on that side of the ball is pretty impressive."

Then there are the seniors that show up every day, do there job with no expectations of playing time. Hill said one of those is Dylan Edding.

"He's one of those kids, that one funny one, that everyone attaches to," he said. "He's only seen the field for cleanup work. But the kids respect him and love him because he goes out there every day, gives it everything he's got with no expectations, loves and respects the other kids and in turn they respect and love him."

And these are the players Hill looks at when defining where the program goes after Friday.

"Legacies are what the expectations are of this program now," he said. "Some people call that culture. As long as we're here, and I mean this big group, it is now set in stone and we're not accepting anything else beside our best and our best is good enough to go win a lot of football games."