“Change” would be the optimal word to describe the 2025 football season for the Muskogee Rougher football team.
It began a year ago when veteran coach Dale Condict, a proven winner with six state titles to his credit coaching at Wagoner, was hired to replace Travis Hill.
“Personally it was a challenge for me just to move after 20 years at Wagoner but it was also rewarding to bring some coaches like Travis Bryant with me and to form a staff of people that I didn’t know such as Mason Fine, Jason Pirtle and Mark Wheeland while getting to know the guys that stayed like Ryan Dvorak, Don Mayes and Anthomy McNac,” said Condict. “Then we had a lot of roster shuffling with players coming and going all during the spring and summer. At the beginning of the season everything was new but by the time we got to our final game against Putnam City we proved we were one of the few teams still in the hunt.”
The Roughers started the season going 0-3 against three quality teams before finding their traction and winning four in a row, eventually making the playoffs, and winning a first round game before falling in a tough battle against Putnam City in the quarterfinals. It completed a highly successful career for many of the 23 seniors on the team that included a state championship, a state runner-up spot and the quarterfinal game as Condict highlighted some of those seniors.
“Jamie Beasley had another great year with over 1000 yards receiving and was a great leader for us and I’ll be interested to see how he does at Sacramento State. Coda Barnoski really came along late in the season. He was great on defense all year but really had an impact playing offense for us down the stretch particularly in that last game against Putnam City and he’s got several college offers he’s considering. Kyron Cope was a great defensive end who came to work every day and did his job, and he’s got three or four college offers. Hayden Lanier, our center, led the offensive line and got hurt late in the season but came back and played, still hurting, in that last game and really showed strong senior leadership. He’s got offers from NSU and Emporia State.”
And there were also a couple of seniors that were new to the Roughers this year that Condict discussed.
“Hayden Von Holt had a great impact this season playing both ways and losing him to injury in that Putnam City game was a big blow for us. He’s got several offers he’s considering. DaCaden Ford was another guy who transferred in this year and had a super year despite playing with nagging injuries most of the year.”
Muskogee will have several holes to fill going into next year but an important spot they won’t have to worry about is quarterback where Kason Delgado will return after passing for over 2100 yards and scoring 28 touchdowns this year.
“Kason was like me in facing the challenge of moving to a different place while learning a whole new offense. But as the season progressed, I felt like the talent he possesses started to show more and more and by the end of year he was getting a good grasp of our offense, and I felt like he had a really good season.”
With a strong sophomore and freshmen class moving up a grade next year plus several juniors that played key roles this year, the future continues to look bright for the Roughers.
