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RADNOR — While there will be the standard questions about personnel, schemes, injuries, experience, depth, strength of schedule and chemistry, there will finally be one blast of welcome certainty for the 2023 Radnor football team.
Specifically, Radnor will play all of its home games in – wait for it – Radnor. Not at Springfield or Conestoga or Ridley. Not at Strath Haven. Not at Penncrest. No, after two years of waiting, the Raptors will play their entire home schedule at Prevost Field, 130 King of Prussia Road, Radnor, PA 19087.
Set the GPS.
“It will be nice,” senior linebacker Lionel Dunbar said, “to not have to take a bus every time.”
The inconvenience, well-documented throughout, was due to the $24.5 million rebuilding project which fitted Prevost Field with a fresh playing surface, better lighting, posh locker rooms and a weight room that would not be out of place at a small college. For that, Radnor accepted it would have to play its 2021 “home” games at various Central League sites. Complications, however, delayed the project until last Oct. 22, when they finally played at Prevost after a 25-game “road” trip.
Finally, then, third-year players like Dunbar will enter a season not only with a sense of normalcy, but with the confidence that a real home crowd can bring.
“It just takes an element of tension off of you, because playing home games, you feel more at ‘home,’ if that makes sense,” he said. “It gives you more comfort.”
So that’s where it begins for an outfit that was 4-7 last season, 3-6 in the Central League, and No. 1 in bus miles logged. Second-year coach Kyle Yeiter, for one, believes the Raptors have been strengthened by the experience, and not just in that weight room.
“We feel light years ahead of where we were last year, obviously,” Yeiter said. “We didn’t get in the new weight room until April, so we didn’t get a full offseason program in, but since May our numbers have been great. So I am pretty sure we will see some of that transition to out on the field.”
The Raptors will have some familiar starting points, among them Dunbar, running back Bryce Cohen and returning quarterback Tucker Graham.
Graham, however will also mix in at receiver, running back and defensive back, sharing some quarterback reps with Matt Szychulski, a junior with a big arm.
“We’re sort of figuring that out, working it out through camp,” Graham said. “I just really want to do whatever helps the team the most. Matt Szychulski is a really good quarterback and has a strong arm.”
When behind center, Szychulski will be surrounded by athletic options, including Graham, Cohen, Jack Jordan and Dunbar, who will work in some running back shifts. Also, receiver Mike Enright, up from JV last season, opened eyes in training camp.
“Tucker will play quarterback-slash-receiver for us this year and Matt is going to be more of our passing quarterback,” Cohen said. “It’s going to be an interesting dynamic to watch them switch back and forth throughout the season. But with the new weight room, new team, new people, there is a lot of optimism about what we can do.”
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Quarterback Tucker Graham gets moving on a stationary bike overlooking the field at the new Radnor training complex. (MEDIANEWS GROUP STAFF PHOTO)
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