Battlefield football coach Mark Cox sat in his office this past Tuesday with offensive coordinator Mark Johnson, dwelling on a question about expectations during the second full week of pre-season practice.

With nothing much more than a shrug, the seventh-year leader of the Bobcats really had not thought that far ahead.

"I would say right now we don't really have any expectations," he said, "other than winning."

Cox is long past the days when he expects multiple teams in the Cedar Run District to have a better chance at the district title than the purple and black. After three consecutive regular season titles and, at long last, a regional title to back it up from the 2009 season, Battlefield's become the team to beat rather than the new kids on the block seeking a win against the old guard like Osbourn and Stonewall Jackson.

But for each of those last three winning years, when the Bobcats racked up 29 consecutive regular season wins (their only loss being opening day against Potomac in 2007), they had 6-foot-6 quarterback Bo Revell on the squad, either in a backup-turned-starting roll his freshman year or as the go-to guy during his last two seasons before graduating.

He's gone now, as are two of his favorite targets on the receiving end, Jamie Robinson and Blaine Mason.

That means a new face of some sort will be guiding the Bobcats this season. So far, Cox has his eye set on three players with no prior varsity experience.

Sophomore Ryan Swingle and senior Devon Greene are both up from the junior varsity team while 6-foot-5 transfer military brat Mike Jorgenson is making his debut fresh out of Japan. Swingle is coming off surgery on his right throwing arm and "just needs some playing time" to get back in the swing of things, according to Cox.

"Physically, he's fine," said Cox, later adding, "(He) needs to get a little bit stronger."

Putting Greene in the backfield would give the BHS offense an entirely new look as the speedster is a natural option back.

"When you have Bo Revell, you don't work at the option that much," said Cox.

Instead, Cox explained, Greene is a "decent running guy" who is the type of athlete that's so competitive, he'll find his way into the game in another position even if he's not quarterback.

"He's going to have to play somewhere," said Cox.

Before even joining the team, Jorgenson found out about the caliber of the Battlefield offense by watching Internet-based YouTube videos of the 2009 team, said Cox, emphatically adding that he wasn't joking about it.

"I guess if you're 6'5" and you like throwing the ball, our offense would be appealing to you," said Cox, even though he mentioned his team is more of a running squad. That happens to work out in Battlefield's favor too given that the team's three running backs are all returners.

"Our formula for winning early on has to be playing defense and running the football," said Johnson, the offensive coordinator.

Nagee Jackson, Cederic Agyeman, and Bobo Beathard all gained varsity experience in the backfield last year with Jackson being the standout from the group as he gathered 1,239 yards and 18 touchdowns in his first year on the team.

They'll be running behind veteran offensive linemen Freddie Potter (center) and David Risoldi (guard) along with returning tight end Turner Meeks. Potter earned second-team all-state honors in 2009 and Meeks is likely to be playing on both sides of the ball this year, doubling up as a defensive end.

He's not alone either. The veteran-heavy defense features several other returners, such as the district's defensive player of the year Zavier Stringfellow (tackle), Drew Elias (linebacker), Chris Wendle (linebacker), Brandon Dukeman (tackle), and Andrew Smith (linebacker) along with Beathard (back), Risoldi (tackle) and others. Most of them can expect to see time on the offensive side of the ball, according to Cox, as he has some self-professed holes to plug.

So far, enthusiam on the team is high as underclassman have outnumbered upperclassmen 2-to-1 during pre-season workouts. Cox said the team's expecting over 80 freshman to try out this year.

"We're 10 times better off trying to find people for offense than we are trying to find people for defensive," said Cox.