When it comes down to wins and losses, the state of varsity football at Brentsville District High School throughout the last decade has bordered on abysmal.

It's been nine years since Brentsville last cobbled together a winning season. Since the team's playoff run in 2006, which even then came after a 5-5 regular season, the Tigers have amassed a 7-33 record, including one win in the last two seasons.

All of that came as Brentsville's student population continued to expand, meaning the talent pool in which to choose players increased too.

This year, everything is changing.

Head coach Dean Reedy, a long-time fixture at Brentsville known for emphasizing a hard-nose the running game on offense, stepped down from the program.

Sixty-five students tried out for the team this year after hundreds of rising juniors, sophomores and freshmen shifted over to Patriot High School a few miles to the north.

In fact, Brentsville did not even have enough kids try out to assemble a freshmen football team.

Perhaps the main glimmer of hope for Brentsville this season is that the new coach is not new to Brentsville at all.

Rather, Tommy O'Neill is more of a mainstay.

The 1998 alum, known in his student days as a state-champion wrestler, earned the promotion from assistant coach at Brentsville after serving Battlefield as both defensive coordinator and head wrestling coach.

According to Battlefield head coach Mark Cox, who guided the Bobcats to the school's first-ever Group AAA state team championship, O'Neill is a motivated individual with an old-school attitude.

"He preached technique, good fundamentals and not a whole lot of nonsense," said Cox. "The kids will be disciplined and well-coached."

That said, Cox didn't make any bones about what it's like to start out as a new coach.

"(It's) always tough the first year," said the coach whose rookie season at Battlefield in 2005 resulted in a 2-8 record.

O'Neill is focusing on the concept of unity in his inaugural run, well-aware of the challenges before him.

"I've been preaching it to (them) the whole time: we're one big family," he said, mentioning that the team's motto this year is, "one goal, one team, one heartbeat."

Players even bark "one!" together splitting from each other at the end of practices

The rookie head coach stresses fundamentals at practice to the point where his boys didn't even touch a football the first three days on the field this month.

"We've got to go back and go to basics and teach from the ground up," he said.

Though the team will be counting on several veterans to implement O'Neill's vision, the coach said he told even his returners that "they don't know anything" as a way to refocus their minds on the game.

He repeatedly emphasized the idea of there being the options for performing on the field: the right way, the wrong way, "and the way we're going to do it."

One area O'Neill highlighted as a strength comes on the offensive line. The assistant wrestling coach has three of his wrestlers on the line, including seniors Brandon Thompson, Juan Funes and Robbie Wood.

They join fellow senior veteran Brian Ashley and likely Nick Schwarz too as the starting five. Schwarz, a junior, split time between the junior varsity and varsity programs last year.

"They're big kids," said O'Neill. "They busted it in the weight room this off-season."

At 225 pounds, Thompson is the smallest of the group. As for whom those linemen will be protecting at the start of each game, that is still up in the air though the team knows at least who is competing for the jobs.

Incoming junior David Boyle and senior Anthony Furr are in at quarterback, with O'Neill committed to relying on just one of them during games. Boyle is back after missing last season with a broken collar bone, something he actually played through before noticing it was actually a problem.

"He never said a word," said O'Neill.

Furr played quarterback at the junior varsity level last year and is a football-savvy left-hander, according to the coach.

"My thing is, we've got so few players out, my quarterback's going to be my quarterback," he said.

Rising juniors Ryan Truesdale and Austin Mohl are set to lead the running back crew. O'Neill praised both of them for buying into the new system, even if they're more natural as linebackers.

"I said, Austin, act like you're playing defense," O'Neill recalled telling Mohl as they focused on him lowering his shoulder during runs.

Sure enough, results came, according to the coach, and that's been buffeted by the idea that "he just wants to play" no matter what.

In fact, that mindset of heart triumphing over all prevails across the whole squad.

"(We're) not the most athletically talented team in the world, but they just want to play," said O'Neill.