Football season is back in the Energy City with Estevan Minor Football training camps opening up last week.
The Steelers bantam team took to the refurbished field at Woodlawn Park to get back in playing shape before their first game on Aug. 19.
After ending the 2012 season with a team that was finally clicking, Steelers head coach Phil Zajac is planning to run a season that gives his team control of each game.
"We're going to run an all out attack offence and defence," he said. "Defensively our philosophy is that we control the offence. They don't control us. We make them do things to avoid us. On offence, our offence is setup to run plays that are very difficult to defend, even with a well-prepared, high level defence."
The Steelers will be running a very similar system to the ones they executed last season.
Zajac is a former coach of the Estevan Comprehensive School Elecs football team and coached the bantam squad last year.
He said he wants to initiate the players who are entering their first year of bantam football and make sure they know their role on the team.
"We have to teach them our system and get them familiar with our plays and our philosophy as a team," he said.
And Zajac wants his team's philosophy and mindset to be competitive. The Steelers had a strong finish last season, and he is hoping the new team can build on that late-season success.
"My goal is to make the playoffs again and win our bowl game," said Zajac.
In the team's last four games of 2012, they scored more than 130 points.
"It came together. The lights went on," he said of his players.
He noted they lost a game to the second-overall team on the last play of the game, and another game at the end of the season in the dying seconds of play on what Zajac called a suspect officiating call. He's hoping some of those tight contests will go their way this season.
Zajac also made it clear he has some very high expectations for the players he coached last year.
"We've got a number of good returning veterans who should be dominating players in the league," he said.
The Steelers will have about 13 or 14 returning players from last year's squad, and roughly an equal number of newcomers. The coaches will also expect those second-year players to help mentor their younger teammates.
"They should be natural leaders as it is their second year. Some personalities aren't that way, but they understand that there was a lot of mentoring that happened with them last year, and they're ready to give back."
Players will be moved into individual positions this week. While returning veterans are more definitively slotted into their roles, Zajac said he wants to see what the new players can do and will place them in the most appropriate jobs.
"We run drills and different things in practice to see the different talent, who the tacklers are, who the catchers are. We run 40-yard sprints and 20-yard sprints on the first day to see who has natural speed. We do pushups to see who has natural strength. That helps us place people.
"What I tell them is nobody has a for sure position on the first day. Everything is up for grabs. You have to earn your position, and I think that's the way your veterans don't get complacent and think their spot is locked up, and the younger kids, there's hope for them to play somewhere."
The Steelers will start their season in Regina against the Stampeders. Their home opener on Aug. 24 will see them square off against the Regina Renegades.
