Day 2 of our Moose Jaw High School Football Preview will take us out of the city and down the Trans-Canada highway to Swift Current Comprehensive High School where the Colts will be looking to erase memories of a rough 2011 season.

Swift Current is coming off a 0-6 record last season and looking for a bounce back season this year.

Head coach Derek Murdoch says even though his team struggled last year, they were right in most games, "Outside of maybe one against Vanier, we were a very competitive football team.  We had 30 guys all pulling on the same rope and we just powered down because we were down in numbers."

Many of the Colts top players last season were forced to play on both sides of the field throughout the season and Murdoch says he feels that contributed to the struggles, "We had such good football players, but they were just in a tough spot because they never got to come off the football field.  They learned a lot of things and we got a lot of them back, so if everybody keeps working at 110 percent, we'll be okay."

A bright spot for the Colts in 2011 was the play of young quarterback Grady Lamontagne.  The now Grade 11 quarterback was forced onto the field after an injury to starter Josh Siemens in the opening game of the season.  Lamontagne led a pass heavy offence for the Colts that finished second in the league with 900 yards passing on the year.

Murdoch says he would like to see more balance this season, but is confident they can play any style, "In a perfect world we would obviously like to see more balance, but we've got some pretty good athletes that will go up and get the football if we need to throw it.  We're pretty confident that our quarterback Grady Lamontagne will make good throws in good situations."

The Colts have a lot of returning players on offence and Murdoch says they will be leaning heavily on running back Casper Hoffman, "(He's) a horse at tailback.  We feel that he's going to be one of our leaders, he's going to put his head down and run through a wall for us.  He's a vocal leader for our team too."

They will also be getting back receiver Jaylen Mayall, who led the league in catches with 19 and finished second with 313 receiving yards.

As for the defence, Murdoch says they expect to use Hoffman as a linebacker and will get back their defensive player of the year from last year, Cam Davidson, "He's as big and strong as we've ever had here, so we're pretty excited about him.

"Defence wins championships and we need to get all of our guys going and for us it will be a matter of balancing things and putting guys in spots where they can be successful.

The Colts will open the season in Moose Jaw next Saturday against the Central Cyclones at Gutheridge Field.

Marc Smith speaks with Swift Current head coach Derek Murdoch about the upcoming season.

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