Like many small schools, it will be a numbers game for the Merryville Panthers after graduating a large senior class.

“We are going to be doing a lot of double-duty,” Merryville head coach Bart Coody said. “We don’t have as many bodies this year as we did last year, but I feel like we have a very high character group.

“They are very disciplined, coachable and the work ethic is through the roof. I was talking to my coaches the other day, we are small and we don’t have a lot of kids but we are probably going to have more fun coaching this group than we have had in a while. They are all just good kids and they play for each other. Nobody is out for themselves. They are just a bunch of team-first guys.”

They return six on the offensive side but have to replace 1,000-yard rusher Dakota Thompson and a 1,000-yard passer in Remington Coody.

Three returners on the offensive side will slide over to new positions in senior Kade Royer (TE to FB), Chandler Blackmon (C to TB) and junior Stella Mirante (WR to QB). Other returners include senior wide receiver Bryson Coody and senior left tackle Corbin Cooper.

The Panthers have more than half their starting lineup returning on defense, but Coody is making a switch to the 3-3 stack formation after giving up 37.1 points allowed a game last season. Senior Newly Shrout, junior Jeremiah Robinson and sophomore Hunter Brister return up front while senior Kade Royer is back at linebacker plus a pair in the secondary in senior Bryson Coody and sophomore Josh Robinson.

“We just have to be better defensively,” Coody said. “We scored plenty of points to win ball games last year, but we were giving up too many.

“It was just missed assignments and missed tackles. With the heat regulations, it is hard to spend a lot of time in pads hitting and tackling, so we are trying, when we can, to get as much work as we can in on that. We just have to be better tacklers and keep people out of the end zone, limit third- and fourth-down conversions so our offense can be on the field. It is hard when you are playing guys in both sides.”

The Panthers went 3-7 last year and missed the playoffs for the first time in a decade.