An emergency Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) meeting held Monday, September 21, granted many fans and players their wish: a fall football season. In a 15-3 vote, the MSHSL Board reversed their August 4 decision to move the season to the spring. 

The players, despite previous credible rumors of a season coming back, were ecstatic when the decision went public. “Pure excitement… I was in class, and when I got the news, the whole class stopped and started cheering, everyone from players to students, even the teacher was super happy,” senior captain Will Petty said. 

Now cleared to play in the fall, Petty and fellow senior captain George Wolfe are looking to lead the team to a section championship. “Honestly, [the goal] is just to go out there and win… we had so much taken away from us this year. We’ve missed games, we’ve missed practices, and things were already weird this summer with how practices were run,” Wolfe said.

Petty agrees with his co-captain. “The team goal is to win a section championship, because as of right now we don’t have a state tournament… but we know that coming out of our section means a lot because most of the time the team from our section wins state,” Petty said. 

The expectations are high, especially after last year’s undefeated regular season. “Following up one of the better teams Benilde has had in a long time, it would mean a lot for the team for us to go out there and truly perform,” Wolfe said. 

In order to do that, the Red Knights will need to excel in their regular season games to ensure a strong spot in the postseason playoff. “The plan is right now for us to play a six-game regular season, and that will include Orono, De La Salle, Cooper, Chanhassen, Holy Angels, and Jefferson. Then we’ll have a four-week playoff, which from what I’ve heard, sounds like it will be a Metro tournament,” Wolfe said. 

The specific four-week postseason format is still to be determined according to the MSHSL Twitter account.