First-year Buena Vista coach Jay Anderson says defense and special teams will be crucial against a tough early schedule. The former assistant coach was promoted after former head coach Steve Osterberger left to take over at Loras.
Anderson says the offense will have a lot of new faces as they graduated eight starters from last year, with the quarterback and two offensive linemen back.
While the offense will have a number of new starters, the defense is experienced with eight starters back.
The Beavers will need to be ready at the outset. They open at Bethel of Minnesota then play last year’s Iowa Conference co-champs Central and Coe. The Beavers have been successful in the past few years by combining a tough defense and good special teams play and Anderson says this season will be no different. He says they’ve always tried to keep the games close and not get into a scoring battle. Anderson says that’ll be important this year until the offense comes around. The Beavers were 5-5 last season.