North Platte senior Colton Kirkham is entering his fourth year as starting quarterback and will look to lead the Panthers to another winning season after two winless years.
It was a historic fall for the North Platte football team last year, who went from two straight winless seasons to finishing above .500 and reaching the district semifinals.
North Platte finished 2022 with a 6-5 record, having more wins than losses for the first time since 2011. Jared Quigley became the Panthers’ head coach last year and has imprinted a new team mantra.
“Last season we started to believe that we could play with people. The theme that I introduced to our team this year is ‘expect to win’. Anytime that we step on the field, anytime we’re in the weight room and anytime we’re at practice, we need to expect to win every single time,” Quigley said.
North Platte had a dynamic offense in 2022, averaging 24 points a game – its most in more than 15 years. Liam Servaes had a monster junior campaign as the Panthers’ top running back, but he had an injury in the 46-14 district win over Carrollton and will be sidelined for the first few games this year.
“Liam started rehabbing in January and it’s been a long process, but he’s had great attendance to the weight room this summer and will be ready to go soon enough. Dylan Armstrong stepped up in his absence and did a nice job for us as a freshman and will be back. We also moved Jason Shanks from receiver into the backfield to give us another option and he’s been doing some really nice things,” Quigley said.
For the fourth straight season, Colton Kirkham will be North Platte’s quarterback. The senior has made strides in the offseason and will have some nice weapons on the offense.
“We have senior Jaxson Carpenter out at receiver; he was a starter for us last year and he’s done some nice things this summer. John Winkler is playing tight end for us; he put on some good size and improved his speed in the offseason and we’re adding sophomore Cameron Wortham and junior Will Hartigan,” Quigley said.
North Platte has some tough opponents on its schedule, taking on two defending district champions in the first two weeks. With the KCI dropping one team in football – since Plattsburg has switched to 8-man – the Panthers have picked up an out-of-state opponent for homecoming, Conway Christian (Ark.).
“In the KCI every team is going to be tough, there’s no game that you should feel extremely comfortable with. Defensively, we’re going to do our best to take away what our opponents do best, whether that’d be running or passing,” Quigley said.
North Platte will rely on all-conference linebacker Chance Garber who led the team in tackles last season and Hayden Gibson, who is a 2-time conference player. Jesse Williams and Owen Stockbauer also add size to the defense, looking to lead the Panthers to a successful year.
“If we take care of business in the regular season, we’ll set ourselves up for the postseason. We’re pushing each other even something as simple as in practice. We get an interception, we get a fumble or some sort of big play, we’re always trying to celebrate those types of little victories,” Quigley said.