By: Andrew Browning <[email protected]>

After finishing as runner-up in last season’s State Final, the Greyhounds face a significant amount of pressure to match last year’s tournament run.

“Obviously there’s going to be lots of expectations for this team,” linebacker and senior Jordan Chapman said. “We’re returning a bunch of starters and a couple All-State players. The goal for us is a state championship.”

What the Greyhounds didn’t expect was to have the spotlight on this early in the season after spending two weeks as Indiana’s Number-1 football team based on the Indiana Class 5A coaches poll. Before losing to Center Grove on Aug. 31, the Greyhounds held the top spot after Warren Central lost its season opener against Merrillville. Although the polls credit Carmel’s early success, Head Coach Mo Moriarity was indifferent about the ranking.

“The only poll that matters is at the end of the season. You decide your ranking with a state championship,” Moriarity said. “There’s a lot of hype out there, but my focus is Friday night and my hope is when the postseason gets here we are playing the best football we can play.”

Aaron King, running back and senior, said, “(The ranking) means absolutely nothing — if anything it’s a burden. All it does is bring more attention to us and make the games that much harder.”

In the team’s loss to Center Grove, the battle for the Number-1 spot proved to be an extra load for the Greyhounds. The intensity level was turned up a notch as the Trojans, then ranked fifth in the state, were battling not only for an important Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference win, but also for the chance to temporarily claim the title of Indiana’s top-ranked team.

Chapman said he agreed with King that being at the top of the polls has made each week tougher, and also said he has never been a fan of the polls. “The only thing rankings can do is hurt you. We’ve always had a big target on our backs being Carmel, and this just makes it bigger,” he said. “As a team, we don’t even talk about it.”

Moriarity said that to help players avoid getting caught up in expectations and hype, he has preached the importance of focusing only on the upcoming Friday night and improving with every week.

“There are high expectations and we understand that, but we’ve got to keep focus on playing one game at a time,” he said. “The key is to get better each week.”

Chapman also stressed the importance of taking the season “one game at a time” when dealing with the added pressure.

“The rankings mean nothing and the media means nothing,” Chapman said. “We won’t know for sure (if we’re the Number-1 team) until the postseason rolls around. If we just take it one game at a time everything will take care of itself.”

King said he believes the team is capable of making a run to the State Final, but can’t afford to get ahead of themselves.

“I think the chances (of winning a state championship) are really high for us, but at the same time we are going to stay humble and take it one week at a time,” King said. “But when it comes playoff time, we’ll be ready.”