When the Streator Bulldogs take the field at Doug Dieken Stadium on Friday, Aug. 29, to open the season against Decatur Eisenhower, fans will see a new Streator football team in just about every sense of the word.

New head coach Jay Slone brings a new philosophy and a new enthusiasm to a largely new pack of varsity Bulldogs coming off a 3-6 season under head coach Matt Cloe, who resigned in November after one season.

“They can expect to see some old-school football – hard, grit, lot of blue-collar kids that are not afraid to get their nose dirty,” Slone said of what Bulldogs fans can expect to see this fall. “It’s going to be back to old-school football, not flashy.

“Just a team coming together looking to compete every single Friday.”

Numbers in the program are slightly down from the year before, with 47 program-wide and just under 30 of those expected to dress varsity. Half of the eight Streator standouts who earned Times All-Area Football Team honors – including three of the four first-team honorees – are gone to graduation.

Slone, though, seems excited about the players he will lead as he attempts to set a cornerstone from which to build a winner out of a program that has had seven consecutive sub-.500 seasons and won just one playoff game in school history.

“I don’t want to look at the wins and losses,” the Bishop Mac and Valparaiso graduate said. “I want to look at competing. Nobody takes a play off. Do your assignment and compete every single down, every single drive, every single quarter, every single half. That’s really what I’ve been harping on.

“I think if we do that, everything will take care of itself with the wins. ... I think once this town starts to see some success, kids will get more excited about playing football and more will follow.”

Among those back from 2024’s varsity roster are the four Times All-Area returnees, all seniors – first-team OL/LB Cole Winterrowd and honorable mentionees RB/LB Kam Magana, WR/DL Riley Stevens and OL/DL Luke Gebhardt. Other seniors poised to make large impacts this fall include OL/DLs Jacob Isermann, Aiden Ferris, Cristian Paramo, Jorrick Black, Jesus Martinez and Cooper Sharisky; RB/LBs Leodies Jordan and Jon Davis; and WR/DBs LA Moton, Aiiden Wilkinson and Quintin Stevens.

Slone has been impressed with the leadership the senior class has shown, and also with the all-around athleticism of a 10-man junior class that includes three players who as of this writing were still competing to replace graduated leader Isaiah Weibel at the starting quarterback position. They are Sharron Morton, Sam LeRette and Jerrad Clark, all explosive athletes who seem likely to get plenty of touches no matter where they’re lined up.

“All three of them are doing so well, [our quarterback rotation] might be per drive – this kid play a drive, this kid play a drive, because this guy can play wing, this guy can play wide receiver,” Slone said. “Depending on the game plan per week, you could definitely wind up seeing two quarterbacks per game.”

Also from that junior class, Slone mentioned potential breakout candidates including RB/LB T.J. Horton and WR/DB Will Heider. Sophomore linemen Mason Clubb and Connor Magana also have been playing their way into varsity reps.

Positional versatility already being a strength, Slone hopes to make positional depth one as well despite the smaller-than-ideal roster.

“I want to make sure that, whoever our 1s are, our 2s are right there and we don’t skip a beat,” he said.

After the opener against Eisenhower, Streator will visit Ottawa in Week 2 and Reed-Custer in Week 3. All three went 1-8 last season.

From there it’s home versus Coal City (9/19), at Peotone (9/26), versus Herscher (10/3), at defending ICE Conference champ Wilmington (10/10), home against old NCIC rival/recent years powerhouse Dixon (10/17) and at Manteno (10/24) to close the regular season.