By Brett Mars ’19, staff writer

The Lebanon Valley College football team will look to turn things around as they begin conference play.

The Flying Dutchmen are currently 0-2 and are set to open MAC play against Lycoming. Despite starting the season with an 0-2 record, the Dutchmen have a chance to right the ship as their record resets to 0-0 in the conference.

“The season did not get off to the start we hoped for, but our confidence moving forward has not waivered,” Ryan Fink, a senior running back and team captain, said.

That is a common mindset for a lot of players on the team.

“I would be lying if I said I was happy with how the season has gone so far,” Derrec Robinson, a senior full back said. “We haven’t played to our potential yet, but we know what we need to fix to be better in the future and control our own destiny for the rest of the season”

The Flying Dutchmen were pegged to finish sixth in the MAC preseason coaches’ poll. Being projected to finish in the bottom half of the conference is not unfamiliar territory for LVC, and they will look to exceed expectations as they did last year.

“We’ve got a clean slate in conference play and we are looking forward to taking advantage of that,” Fink said. “Our upperclassmen have become accustomed to being the underdog and it is a place where we thrive.”

When asked what he thought the team would have to do to have their best conference finish in the last four years, Jared Kramp, a senior wide receiver, had this to say:

“We’re going to have to trust one another to win some of our bigger games, but it’s something our upperclassmen have done in the past and we plan on doing it this year as well.”

The Flying Dutchmen will play Albright College on November 10, 2018, which is a big rivalry game for LVC. The entire student body benefits from a Dutchmen win, as President Thayne typically adds anextra day to Thanksgiving break after the March on Kreiderheim.

Some of the seniors were asked about their thoughts of potentially winning their second game against Albright, which is something that not many LVC classes have done.

“To be honest I haven’t put much thought into it yet,” Fink said. “It’s our last game of the regular season, and there’s a lot of football to be played between now and then.”

Kramp had similar thoughts about the Albright game.

“It would definitely be awesome to beat Albright again, but that’s not really where my head is at right now,” Kramp said. “We’re taking this season one game at a time, so we’ll deal with Albright come week 11.”