The Audubon Wheelers open up their 2019 football season Friday night with a Week 0 match-up against the East Mills Wolverines. The game came about shortly before both teams were set to open up camp. East Mills had already lost a game off their schedule with Stanton and Essex sharing a program for this season. Then Clarinda Academy announced they would not be fielding a team for the season just a few weeks ago. East Mills Head Coach Kevin Schafer said they were then scrambling to find another game to add. The Wolverines were turned down by a couple of schools they reached out to, then had a possibility with a school on the Eastern side of the state but decided that commute was too much. Then Audubon stepped up and agreed to the early season game.

The game will feature two teams that narrowly missed the playoffs last year. The Wolverines went 7-2 with losses to district opponents Stanton and Fremont-Mills. Audubon went 6-3 with losses to Fremont-Mills, Exira-EHK, and CAM.

The Wolverines return star quarterback Michael Schafer and a few other nice pieces. Schafer threw for 2,003 yards and 28 touchdowns with 10 interceptions last year. Audubon Head Coach Sean Birks said the Wheelers will need to wreak some havoc up front and make Schafer uncomfortable.

The Wheelers will counter with a quarterback coming off a nice season as well, Skyler Schultes. He racked up 954 yards passing with 14 touchdowns and 5 interceptions and added 1,136 yards rushing with 26 more scores. Wolverines Head Coach Kevin Schafer knows the Wolverines will need to try to slow that run game down.

Coach Birks said the Wheelers hope to work the power run game again this season but also hope to take some of the load off of Schultes.

The Wheelers and Wolverines will tee it up at Chiz Jones Field at 7:00pm on Friday night. We’ll start our coverage with the Dvorak Tire and Service Pregame Show at 6:30pm. Chris Parks and Mike Smith will have the call on the air, online, and on the web app. You can also catch live video on KJAN TV. Go to kjan.com then click KJAN Video Network under the Community Hub. Then click the KJANTV logo to get to the broadcast page.