Countdown to kickoff: Bonded together, Leathernecks seek to change program’s trajectory

MACOMB, Ill. — Joe Davis called them “family dinners.”

It’s a weekly get-together for the Western Illinois University football team, a team meal and bonding exercise that Davis started in the winter after becoming the Leathernecks’ new coach.

The Leathernecks haven’t won a game in the last two seasons, and there were going to be a lot of comings and goings that are all too familiar in college football these days, so Davis wanted this roster to bond.

“I think it’s helped, because you get to know some guys that maybe you wouldn’t talk to normally,” said quarterback Nathan Lamb, one of the Leathernecks’ captains this season. “Some of my best friends are on special teams, someone I wouldn’t usually be around. I think it helps getting to know people. People were called up to speak, asked why they play football, stuff like that. It gives you a different perspective than what you would normally have.”

Then Lamb smiled.

“Good food, too,” he said.

“It was important to me to start the weekly dinners, and having the funds to do that, to sit down and have a nice home-cooked meal for our team, to come together and break bread,” Davis said. “It’s done a lot to help bring us together.”

It’s part of Davis’ plan to rebuild a program that hasn’t had a winning season since 2017, hasn’t made the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs since that season, and has a 24-game losing streak that dates back to 2021.

Davis has a vision that he has conveyed to the WIU fan base. Delivering on that plan is the next step.

“I think the reception has been very positive,” Davis said. “I would be honest with you if I didn’t say I think there’s a little bit of ‘show us’ mentality. ‘Hey, we’ve seen Western football be great in the past. We love the new energy of the new coach. Let’s see where this goes.’

“And I completely understand that.”

Davis has 113 players in the program, with 65 of them newcomers.

That’s a lot of getting-to-know-yous.

“We’re ready to get past the slump that we’ve been in,” Lamb said. “And you know, that message was pretty much put forth the first day, that this isn’t going to be the same Western Illinois football team. It’s going to be a lot different. A lot of these guys, pretty much all those guys, have followed along with that.”

Linebacker Juan DelaCruz is in his fifth season with the Leathernecks. He played in the spring season in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, was here for the last win, and has gone through without a victory.

“It’s been a ride, it’s been one hell of a ride,” DelaCruz said. “And so the only thing I can do is lead these newcomers and hopefully give them a season they can remember in their first year.”

DelaCruz knows what he wants for this season.

“A turning point,” he said. “Obviously, I’m not coming back next year. And I just want Western to be going in a different direction from where I started at. Obviously, the two years we had weren’t very good. I take full responsibility, because I was the captain those last two years.”

Davis knew there would be steps to putting this team together — installing what he could with who he had in the spring, then add players out of the spring session of the NCAA’s transfer portal to fill gaps in the roster.

“I think one of the biggest surprises, one of pleasant surprises this fall, is the fairly seamless integration of the new transfers we brought in,” he said. “Not only have they helped us from a depth in football perspective, but they have fit very, very, very well into the university, the community, the culture here. Guys with positive mental attitudes, guys with good students, guys that have that team-first mentality. And some of the guys that we brought in immediately were running with the first group. Other guys weren’t, but everybody was on the same page when it came to trying to make the team better.”

“What we did in the spring, I feel like it carried over into the fall, and then we amplified it after that,” defensive lineman Tre Henry said. “We took what we did in the spring, got better and got even better after that. You just kept getting better each and every day. And I feel like we’re sitting in a really good spot as a team.”

The Leathernecks, who open the season on Saturday at Northern Illinois, will be playing in their first season in the Big South-OVC Football Association, a fresh look after the last few years of not being able to get any sort of traction in the crucible of the Missouri Valley Football Conference.

One of the goals, Henry said, is not to let the past cloud the present.

“Anyone who has been on this team, whether they were here the past couple years or not, it lingers in the back of their minds that we didn’t win, but it’s not something that we focus on,” he said. “We’re focusing on what’s ahead. We’re going to go and win games this year. So that’s what the focus is on, what’s coming up and not what has happened in the past few years.”

“I think the difference is just belief,” DelaCruz said. “The guys that we’ve got now believe in what Joe Davis is preaching and what he’s doing. They believe in the offensive game, believe in the defensive scheme as well. It’sall just belief, that’s all.

“Once you get guys believing, it’s different.”