BLUFFTON, Ohio (WLIO) - Countdown to Kickoff takes us to Bluffton.

After back-to-back seasons of 12 or more wins, the Pirates' 2025 run came to an abrupt end in the opening round of the playoffs.

Now, Bluffton is back and determined to prove that last season's finish was nothing more than a storm they had to weather.

The 2025 season saw the Bluffton football team finish 8-3 and third in the Northwest Conference. But the Pirates bowed out of the opening round of the postseason that year. Now, 11th-year head coach Jeff Richards says this year's team is battle-tested and ready to make another run.

"I think a big thing last season was handling adversity. We had a lot of injuries throughout the season, so we had some young players who were forced to play probably a little earlier than they were ready. Those players are back this year with that experience and they're more prepared for it. So we had to battle through some games where our personnel wasn't quite what we wanted, but yet we made the most of what we had available," said Richards.

"Eight wins last year that sucked, so I think our goal is to do better than last year and that's making a deep playoff run and feel like we learned a lot. We had a lot of young guys last year and I feel like with the year of experience we're going to step it up and we're going to be good," said Bluffton senior linebacker and running back Parker Lovell.

After graduating 8 seniors from the program, the Pirates will have a senior class of ten this year.

"I think leadership from our upperclassmen has been huge. They've taken a lot of ownership in the offseason of making sure people were where they were supposed to be," said Richards.

"I think the senior class has really woke up, especially the younger classmen. We've woken them up to like it's not junior high football anymore, and you know our expectations this year in Bluffton is you know to win a championship and I think the senior class has really stepped up and done that," said Tayte Giesige.

Senior Tayte Giesige will be back for year number three at quarterback.

"I just want to win games with my team. And I think the main objective this year for us as a team is go win a championship and that's always going to be the goal. I think that's what you can expect from this team," said Giesige.

The past three seasons saw Bluffton finish in the top three of the Northwest Conference standings, including back-to-back runner-up finishes in 2023 and 2024. And like Giesige said, the Pirates have championship aspirations as they look to take down the three-time defending league champs Columbus Grove.

"I think a big thing for us is to be process driven. We want to be better today than we were yesterday. If we continue to get better each day, by the time we hit that Allen East game, which is our first conference game, we hope to be a good enough team to do what we need to do. And then if we continue to excel throughout the season, be in a position to win the conference championship by the end of the year," said Richards.

With 2026 approaching, the Pirates are set to sail on a new journey.

And for Bluffton, that journey starts with putting in the work in the offseason to be ready when it matters most.

"Preseason is all about building that foundation. We go from the base of what we're doing and then we build from there. So, these preseason practices, it's huge to have a solid foundation that as we go throughout the season, we can fall back on that stuff we did at the beginning," said Richards.

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