Last December, Ashland University head football coach Lee Owens was sitting on his couch, watching the division two national championship game. And despite the fact that his football team failed to make the post season, the 12th year head coach felt that his team could have been the one hoisting the trophy. 

“Last year we had a football team that could have beaten anyone in America. I watched the national championship game between Minnesota State and Colorado State-Pubelo and I promise you, we matched up with those two teams. And we are not taking a step backwards this season,” said Owens. 

After coming up one game short of the post season in 2014, AU will be playing with a chip on their shoulder when they open the regular season against Lake Erie on Sept. 3. 

AU will be lead on the field by their now sophomore year quarterback Travis Tarnowski. The North Royalton High School product completed 58 percent of his passes and fired 16 touchdowns en route to winning the GLIAC Freshman of the Year award.

Entering his sophomore campaign, Owens has no fears of a sophomore slump for his quarterback.

“We don’t talk about sophomore slumps around here. We talk about super sophomore seasons,” Owens said. “We expect him to have a super sophomore season. As good as he was last year, we are expecting more from his this year.”

The offense will be retooled around Tarnowski, who will be without two of his favorite weapons, as AU all time leading rusher Anthony Taylor, and 2014 leading receiver Dan Piko graduated. Owens said that while there is no replacing a Piko or Taylor AU has the players capable of stepping up.

“We will definitely miss Anthony and Danny,” said Owens. “But in any good football program you are going to graduate good players. But we have those next guys emulating those guys who left. You hope for a guy like Vance Settlemire and Jordan McCune to have an Anthony Taylor like year. And they have the ability to do so.” 

On the other side of the ball the defense seems to be strong as ever.

“I think you win championships with defense,” said Owens. “Our defensive ends [Chase] Hoobler and [Adam] Wallace are dominating players. Our inside linebackers [Brandon] Gency and [Zach] Olszewski are great, smart football players.  Daivon Barrow is playing well at strong at strong safety; Terrell Hudson is having a great camp at free safety, as is Donzale Ashley. Our two corners Ester and Dale Irby are as talented as we’ve had since I’ve been here. This team is very good defensively.” 

AU starts its season on the road visiting Lake Erie and Walsh before opening up the home schedule when nationally ranked Ohio Dominican comes to Ashland. 

AU will face three nationally pre season ranked teams on the home docket in ODU, Grand Valley State and Michigan Tech. 

The team will look to go undefeated at home.

“We are a tough out here at home,” said Owens. “You look at the record we don’t lose many games here. One of our goals as a football team is to defend Martinelli Field. You look at the home schedule and it might be the best one we have played since I’ve been here. Three nationally ranked teams, our longtime rival in Hillsdale and our Ohio rival in Findlay. So if you haven’t bought your season tickets yet, you better do so.”

For Owens, the mission for the 2015 AU football team is simple, make the playoffs and compete for a national championship.

“Our goals are listed on a wall coming out of our locker room every year and they just don’t change,” said Owens. “You win your games at home, you win the traveling trophy and keep it here, you want to be the best division two school in Ohio, you want to win the GLIAC and advance in the playoffs. I believe we have a club that can do all of those things this season.”