The future is now for the Grand View football program. In just its sixth year of varsity football the Vikings are two victories away from a national championship and they will host Morningside on Saturday in the semifinal round of the NAIA playoffs.
Coach Mike Woodley leads a program that rose quickly after posting a 2-8 record in 2008. “When you win football games it gives you an opportunity to attract players. We won 8 games in our second year and we’ve had three 8 win seasons, and that winning goes a long way when you are trying to recruit — yeah a little quicker than we thought, to be honest,” Woodley says.
The next hurdle is a big one as the Vikings play a fifth ranked Morningside team that made it all the way to the national championship game a year ago. “After they lost in the national title game last year I sure their motivation is to get back to that game and win it this year. Because I honestly thought they should have won it last year, but it didn’t happen,” Woodley says. “I’m sure that’s been the war cry all year in their program, let’s get back there and win it.”
Woodley says his team believes they have arrived and they will find out on Saturday. As the second ranked team, this will be Grand View’s third straight home game in the playoffs. They opened the season by playing five of their first six games away from home.
Woodley believes going on the road toughened the team and he hopes they can up their play this week knowing that they are one game away from the national championship.
Grand View is 12-0.