photo by: Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World

Lawrence High junior Alex Bart (left) and sophomore Joey Dooley celebrate in the end zone during the City Showdown football game on Friday, Oct. 24, 2025, at Lawrence High School in Lawrence.

Lawrence coach Jason Thoren said he’s had as much fun coaching Lawrence football this summer as he’s ever had coaching a team. He’s seen an excited, hard-working team that is ready to compete.

Lawrence will get to see that work in action on Friday, as the Lions face Gardner Edgerton on the road at 7:30 p.m. The Lions are coming off a 2025 season that ended with a 1-8 record, though the team believes it learned a lot from those games and are ready to compete against the best in the state in 2026. Gardner Edgerton will be quite the litmus test for the Lions early in the season.

“They’re a physical bunch,” Thoren said of Gardner Edgerton. “I went and watched them play in the playoffs a couple times last season and was thoroughly impressed with their team and some of their players. Up front is where they’ve had their success.”

The Trailblazers are coming off a 9-3 season last year that ended in the semifinal round of the 6A playoffs. The two years before that, the Trailblazers won back-to-back state championships. The Trailblazers have paved their way to success with a physical presence in the trenches.

Gardner Edgerton runs a flexbone offense, a system that is built around a power run game that has different run options despite looking like the same play or alignment. It keeps defenses on their toes, and the Trailblazers use that to attack defenses with physicality.

Lawrence had a hard time stopping the run a season ago, especially in games against teams whose top offensive priority is to establish the run. The Lions have gotten bigger, stronger and more experience along the defensive line, which should help the team improve in that regard this year overall. But for the first week of the season, playing a run attack like Gardner Edgerton will be a unique challenge for the Lions.

“I think we have some physical players, too,” Thoren said. “It’ll be a good challenge for us, matching their physicality. But I think we’re a physical group.”

The first game of the year always brings a bit of rust for teams, leading to more penalties or missed tackles than teams have later in the year. Making those mental mistakes against a good team that has a track record of winning can prove costly, and Lawrence will need to minimize unforced errors and wrap up on tackles to get the road win.

Defensively, the Trailblazers are a tough team up front, just like the offense. Thoren believes in the physicality of his team up front to attack the Gardner Edgerton defense, but he also believes in the team’s playmakers along the outside. The Lions have a slew of receivers who can make plays in space and a duo of running backs who can move the chains in the run and pass game.

“We’re going to take what they give us,” Thoren said. “If they want to give us light boxes, we’ve got to be able to run the ball. If they want to give us heavy boxes, we’ve got to be able to throw the ball. We can throw the ball, and I think we can run the ball. It’ll be a four-quarter game.”

Thoren also stressed the importance of ball security going into this game. As temperatures rise, ball security can get worse as sweat gets the ball more slippery while tucked away.

The first game of the season always provides a level of uncertainty as teams bring along new players up to varsity to replace those who graduated. But one thing Gardner Edgerton has a certainty about is knowing how to win, with 33 wins over the last three years. Thoren said that’s important to develop.

“I think there’s a lot to that,” Thoren said. “When you start to struggle within a game, there’s faith you’re going to pull yourself out of it. That’s where you want to be as a program.”

The Lions are working to build their program up to that level and a big road win over a consistent title contender would go a long way toward the Lions moving forward.