Entering the 2026 season, the Bushnell-Prairie City High School football squad and coach Jacob Schisler have nowhere to go but up.
The Spartans finished 1-8 a season ago, getting outscored by their opponents by a margin of 517-196.
“We’re going to be young again,” said Schisler. “But we got a team that’s hungry and ready to go.”
The roster has just two seniors in linemen Braxton Kempf and Andre Watts. Watts is one of the team’s leading returners in tackles, finishing with 37 stops a season ago (15 solo, 22 assists).
Playmaker Jonavan Harrell also returns. A year ago, Harrell rushed for 1,235 yards and 17 touchdowns on 140 carries. He also caught 11 passes for 202 yards and three scores.
Harrell is also the top returning tackler on defense after recording 54 total stops (32-22) last year, along with a team high five interceptions.
Thomas Anderson completed 23-of-67 pass attempts last year for 378 yards with 4 TDs and 7 INTs.
Schisler noted that while it was a learning experience for the players during the season, the off-season gave him and the coaching staff important time to assess what needed to be done.
“You learn from some things,” said Schisler. “I think that exposure, especially for the guys we have returning, it’s going to help them immensely going into this season. Knowing what to expect, what you’re dealing with and knowing that you have to go hard every single play.”
Offensively, minus Harrell, the Spartans rushed for just 337 yards and 4 TDs on 112 carries. As a team B-PC completed just 35 of 120 pass attempts for 614 yards and 6 TDs with 14 INTs.
Defensively, the Spartans gave up an average of 57 points per game.
“I think our biggest thing was making sure we were putting guys in the best position to succeed,” said Schisler. “We’ve actually switched up our offense a little bit as far as schemes and formation goes. It should better benefit our guys on offense.”
“It’s the same thing on defense,” he added. “We want to get all of our playmakers on the field so our defense is going to look a little bit different as well.”
Among the players Schisler is counting on to make huge strides this season are Dylan King, who had 36 tackles last year (14-22), Keegan Gillette and Braylon Griffits, who did not play a year ago, but joined the team this season.
Landon Lear returns (2411-35 total tackles), while other players, including freshmen Patrick Raines and Zaedin Hart have impressed early on.
While some things may change offensively for the Spartans, Harrell remains the straw that stirs the B-PC drink.
“He’s still going to be a huge part of our offense,” said Schisler of Harrell. “But we’ve got other guys that can contribute at different positions.”
“What’s really nice about Jonavan is that people are going to key on him, so we can use him as a little bit of a decoy if we need to,” he added.
Heading into the new season, divisions in the Illinois 8-man Football Association (I8FA) have changed slightly.
Amboy/LaMoille/Ohio and Flanagan-Cornell/ Woodland have been moved to other divisions. That leaves B-PC, West Central, Peoria Heights, Ridgewood, Galva and West Prairie/ Southeastern in the new Central West division.
“I think it’s going to be a really tough division and really it’s anybody’s division to win honestly,” said Schisler. “I think that we’ve got a good group of kids and I know if you talk to any other coach in this division, they’re going to say the same thing.”
“It’s just like who wants it more at the end of the day.”
“There’s so much turnaround in 8-man every year. A team that could’ve won 1-2 games last year could go and win 6-8 games this year,” he added. “We’ve got to take it week by week and hone in on the things we have to get better at.”
For Schisler that starts with consistency on both sides of the football.
“We’ve got to be consistent both on offense and defense, not get away from what we’re good at” said Schisler. “Making these young guys believe in themselves.”
“Hopefully we can get some JV games in there and get some confidence for some of these younger guys,” he added. “The majority of kids that are going to be starting for us are JV players. Being able to have those JV games and get them some success there at the JV level and then obviously showing up on Friday, hopefully they can carry over that confidence going into Friday night.”
Missing the playoffs the past two seasons, the goal for Schisler and the Spartans is to be playing post-season football.
“Our goal every year is a minimum of six wins. If we can get six wins, that guarantees you a playoff spot,” said Schisler. “If we can really shoot for those six wins, that’s what we want, because that gets our foot in the door. Once we’re in, anything can happen.”
