The Salisbury football team has two primary goals this season. One involves its play on the field, the other does not. But the two are related.

The Falcons want to keep their program moving forward. And they want to do it while honoring the memory of assistant coach Andy Doran, who died last season at the age of 33.

“I asked our players to design a t-shirt,”said Falcon head coach Andy Cerco. “They wanted to make it commemorative of [Doran]. The slogan on the back says ‘Continue what we started’ and it says ‘Coach Doran’ on the bottom. They want to do it for him.”

Salisbury is coming off a 7-3 season and an appearance in the District 11 playoffs. The Falcons and their coaches don’t want to be the kind of team that builds several years toward one playoff appearance. They want to be the kind of program that fields successful teams year in and year out.

“Their long term goal is to get a district win,” said Cerco. “Last year we qualified for district playoffs. Now we want to qualify and win a game.

“If we take care of the football and cause some turnovers, the final score is going to be in our favor most of the time.”

The Falcons graduated a lot of key players from last year’s team. But Cerco has some talent returning and he likes the players that are stepping into varsity roles. They are players that have been part of the Salisbury program since they got to high school or even before.

“They’re new to starting as varsity players, but they’ve been in our program for four years now,” said Cerco. “It’s their time.”

Salisbury will have a first-year starter at quarterback in either Lucas Irwin or Cameron Vaka.

“Right now they’re both doing really nice things,” said Cerco. “Both bring positive things to our offense. If that continues we can envision both getting reps and when they’re not in at quarterback both getting reps somewhere else.”

The new quarterbacks will run the flexbone offense, which the coaching staff installed this season after visits to Army and Navy to learn the scheme.

Slot backs Christian Butz, Timmy Buda, Louis Marquez, Peter Forestieri and Alex Glenn will run the ball in a running back by committee.

The strength of the offense could be the line. Junior center Dillon Trenge returns for his third year as a starter. Junior Mike Killiri (6-foot-4, 241 pounds) and junior Augustino D’Ancona (5-9, 195) also returnd after starting on the line last season. Seniors Dante Martinez (6-2, 220) and Jarod Burkhardt (6-1, 205) and sophomore Danny Jennings (5-10, 265) got some playing time on the line last season and should be able to help fill the holes left by graduation.

Salisbury’s defensive front returns mostly intact from last season. Linemen Killiri, senior Jaxon Costello (6-5, 240) and Eric Frankenfield (6-4, 210) all started last year in the Falcons’ 3-5 stack scheme.

D’Ancona and CJ Wittman return at the inside linebacker spots. Wittman was a safety last year and will play closer to the line of scrimmage this year.

While there will be some new starters in the backfield, the Falcons expect the defense to be a strength this year.

While the goals for the season are as stated above, the larger goal of the Salisbury program has a much broader focus.

“Our overall program goal is to raise young men of character,” said Cerco. He cited several different things the team does to help the community and help make the Falcons players more well-rounded people.

They are involved in a Best Buddies program where players go out spend time with special education students. They’re also doing Touchdowns for Cancer in conjunction with MaxPreps. That’s a program where each touchdown scored helps raise money for cancer research and awareness.

The team also doing something called Heart of a Champion.

“Our administration is allowing us to run this program during the school day,” said Cerco. “We have a class period where we go over character development, leadership skills, those kind of off the field thing, just being a genuinely good person.”

Cerco is most proud of the fact that he sees these things sinking in with his players on the field and off. At practices he sees them doing some things instinctively this season, things that in past years he would have to harp on.

“That’s a sign these kids are getting it and they’re going in the right directions,” he said.

This team seems ready to continue what it started.