Trinity football finished the 2024 regular season with an 8-2 record. However, they lost in the first round of the playoffs to Mary Hardin-Baylor University 22-29. The 2024 season was also the last with experienced starting quarterback Ryan Back, who graduated last spring.
“Last year’s group was last year’s group,” senior running back Johnny Milo said. “This year, this is our group. It’s an incredibly talented group, so I’m excited to see what happens.”
The Tigers will begin their 2025 campaign with a new offensive identity and a new starting quarterback.
Offensive coordinator and offensive line coach Wade Lytal guided the second-best ranked offense in the Southern Athletic Association (SAA) conference last season for a cumulative 2,970 yards and 26 touchdowns. “[We’re] kind of starting to tool the offense around the current guys we have,” Lytal said. “We want to have a very quarterback-friendly offense. We want our offense to feature the skillsets of the guys that we have, and every single year, that’s going to be different.”
Trinity’s offense outscored its opponents in the 2024 regular season 322-192. Milo had a career-best 104 receiving yards over nine games.
“This is our team,” Milo said. “If someone’s going to lead, it’s our class that’s leading.”
Milo said he also looks to become more involved with the offense this season by having more catches.
“Our offense, they really want the backs to get involved with the passing game as well,” Milo said. “I’m excited to see what happens this year, as far as rushing and passing go.”
Defensive Coordinator and Assistant Head Coach Paul Michalak said that the new 40 first-year players to the team will have to learn to adjust to Trinity’s team culture.
“[The] biggest thing is they’ve got to drop their ego,” Coach Michalak said. “They were [high school] seniors who played a lot of football and had leadership roles. Now they’re coming into a new situation with people that they don’t fully have history with … We tell them to dive in head-first. I am not a guy that gets overly upset about mistakes early on.”
Sophomore quarterback Hondo Franklin will be the starting quarterback heading into the season-opening rematch against Texas Lutheran University (TLU) who beat Trinity last fall at home 20-35.
“We’ll take each game one at a time,” Franklin said. “Losing to TLU last year — first game of the season — kind of stung, so we’re going to come out and we’re going to bring it to them.”
Franklin said veteran starting quarterbacks who started in previous seasons Ryan Back and Tucker Horn gave him advice as he prepared to take snaps this year.
“[Back] said, ‘You have the keys; go lead [and] don’t be afraid. These guys know and respect you, just do the right thing, lead them right and you know what to do.’ I learned a lot from him.”
Coach Lytal said he looks forward to the 2025 season coaching the players.