A rough start to the offseason for Air Force football hasn’t done anything to diminish the confidence the team earned over the final month of the 2024 campaign.

The experience earned in a season marked by extreme ups and downs has left this team drastically different in spring practice vs. a year ago when the team was breaking in new players at most positions.

“Last year we were excited,” said center Costen Cooley following a practice session Saturday morning as the team moved close to the halfway point of its spring sessions. “This year it’s like we know we can do it, so we’re going to go do it.”

Air Force opened last season 1-7, but closed with four wins in a row. Since then two sophomore defensive standouts – defensive back Lincoln Tuioti-Mariner (to Southern Utah) and outside linebacker David Santiago (to Michigan State) – have transferred and sophomore quarterback Quentin Hayes is not practicing with the team, is not in good standing as a cadet and is a question mark for the future.

What remains from the turbulence is a quarterback competition led by sophomores Josh Johnson and Liam Szarka. Sophomore Maguire Martin and freshmen Jackson King and Brody Fortunati are also working out at that position.

While the personnel in the defensive secondary must scramble to replace far more than Tuioti-Mariner, as seniors Jamari Bellamy, Camby Goff, Jerome Gaillard and Trey Williams will also depart, the defensive front looks fortified to absorb the loss of Santiago.

Defensive end Daniel Grobe, nose guard Payton Zdroik and defensive tackle Aiden Schwartz return for their senior seasons and freshman Jaylin Reese, at 6-foot-3, 245 pounds, looks like a powerful potential replacement to Santiago.

“I think we’re going to be pretty good up front defensively,” Schwartz said.

Players come and go, particularly in this era, but the overhaul required this season with 10 starters back (six on offense and four on defense) is nothing compared to last year when just five starters returned. There was residual confidence for the program as it was riding a stretch where it had averaged 10 wins over four full seasons. But the returning players hadn’t played a direct part in much of that.

Now, the group participating in spring practice has first-hand knowledge of what this is all about.

For the offensive line, that difference came from dominating up the middle. The Falcons averaged 302 rushing yards over the final four games, with fullbacks accounting for more than half of those yards between the tackles.

“At least for me, we know what it takes to run up the middle every play and we know we can do it,” Cooley said. “Coming into spring ball, it’s about just learning how each other play and being confident in each other and just trying to get to the point where we were last year, and keep the winning streak going.”

In some ways, it’s as though Air Force experienced both a winning and losing season all in one in 2024. Ending with the wins is what appears to have stuck with the team during its spring practices.

“It fuels us even more,” Schwartz said. “You know what good seasons are like and what bad ones are like. You know the difference between winning and losing. Reflecting on last year and thinking about what we want to do gives us a lot of motivation to have a lot of good practices.”