Erie-Prophetstown gets boost from three returning players

Eric Robinson missed the 2017 season with an ankle injury, then took 2018 off to work.

Hunter Oleson spent last year earning money as well.

Levi Cole missed last season with an injury, a smashed patellar tendon in his left knee.

This year, all three are back on the field and ready to play big roles for Erie-Prophetstown.

“I definitely missed it, a lot,” Oleson said. “[Coming back] was almost a must. Last year, there’d be Friday nights and I’d be working, my heart would kind of drop. It was a must for me to come back senior year. I missed it. I’m sure a couple of my buddies missed it, too. We had a pretty tight bond.”

Oleson told some of the Prophetstown guys he was thinking of coming back, and had a happy reunion with the players from Erie.

“Some of the Erie players weren’t really sure, and I hadn’t seen them in a couple of years,” Oleson said. “When they saw me and I saw them, we were smiling.”

Robinson said he just missed the guys.

“It’s been a while since I played, and I just missed it so much,” he said. “I really wanted to help everything in this program change, just change the culture and be a part of that team that does.”

He’s been gone from the football field for 2 years, but he’s hardly a stranger to his teammates, having played alongside Ross Purvis and Clayton Johnson as a breakout contributor on Erie-Prophetstown’s boys basketball team, as well as running track in the spring.

“I know everyone around here,” he said. “It really did help knowing them. I really am thankful to them for accepting me almost immediately as their quarterback.”

Cole was looking at about a 6-month recovery after track season in 2018 and wanted to get healthy for that sport, where he wound up winning a sectional title and taking ninth in the state in high jump this past spring.

“I had to take a fall off,” he said. “Football, I just had to take it off. [I] didn’t want to, but had to.”

But over a fall away from the football field, that itch was there to put the pads on one more time.

“It’s been there for a while,” he said. “It’s good to be back.”

Cole doesn’t think he’s quite back at 100% physically, and isn’t sure he ever will be. This season will tell him what he is still able to do on the field and what he can’t.

Adding to the learning curve is that Erie-Prophetstown has a different coach than it had when those three last took the field. Chuck Milem was the coach then; Jesse Abbott is in his second year leading the Panthers now.

“I’ve got a lot of catching up to do,” Oleson said. “But I’ve just got to have that mentality. I’ve got to learn everything. I’ve got to be a sponge.”

A lot of that learning came during the winter and spring lifting sessions, as Abbott and the rest of the coaches would pull the returning players aside to show them things on whiteboards that they need to know from the playbook.

“It was all brand new last year, so they’re picking it up Year 1 this year,” Abbott said. “They got a lot of looks at it. They got a lot of coaches talking to them often about it. It helps that all three are pretty smart kids.”

Cole said to get back up to speed, he’ll have to “pay attention, work hard every rep. Lift when I can. Run when I can.”

Oleson started lifting again in November to stay in shape, then joined Robinson and Ross Purvis to run routes over the summer.

“It’s about bonding and getting in shape,” Oleson said. “I felt we did a good job of that. We just need to keep building.”

Robinson is not just a part of the team, he’s leading its offense as the Panthers’ starting quarterback.

In order to get up to speed in that role, he said he’ll “watch a lot of film from last year and of course, just ask a lot of questions. I’ve asked a ton of questions every day at practice.”

Robinson brings a lot of athletic ability to the game, and the Panthers are using that with a handful of plays designed for him to run the ball and some others that give him a chance to get to the edge to throw.

Oleson will be a fullback for the E-P offense, spending most of his time between the tackles. It is the role he played as a freshman before transitioning to quarterback his sophomore year. He has speed, but he also brings a power-running aspect Erie-Prophetstown didn’t have much of last year.

“The biggest strength for him is he’s strong,” Abbott said. “He spent a lot of time in the weight room. He’s just a bigger kid. He can take the wear and tear of running the ball between the tackles. I think once he realizes how he will be against other varsity kids, he’s going to be fine, and he’ll understand he doesn’t need to outrun everybody, he can bang between the tackles and do what he needs to do.”

Abbott sees Oleson as an every-down player, leaving him in even when the Panthers go to a spread offense, unlike last year when they took the fullback out in the spread

Cole will be a wide receiver, the role he played as a sophomore

“He’s a runner and a jumper,” Abbott said. “He’s got good hands and he’s 6-2, so he’s got a big catch radius, so anything close to him, he’s going to pull it in.”