It’s a given that the Knights will be lacking in experience, but that is only true between the lines. On the sidelines will be a new coach, but one who has been around the block a few times.

Gene Keene takes over the Poland program, and brings with him 30-plus years of experience as a head coach and assistant.

“He knows what he’s talking about because he has coached for (30) years, and won a bunch of games,” senior Caleb Hodgkin said of Keene. “So we know to listen to him because he has a lot of knowledge.”

Keene previously was the head coach at Edward Little, Winthrop and Noble. He has been an assistant at Lewiston and Bates College, and last year helped out with the EL freshmen team.

“I just think I still have stuff to offer kids, and it doesn’t matter if it’s football or not,” Keene said. “I want the kids to have a good experience. I want them to learn discipline, I want them to learn respect. And that’s why I’m here, to teach them that stuff.”

The players met their new coach in June, just in time to start summer workouts. It gave Keene a little bit of a head start on creating a chemistry with his players.

“It’s been pretty good, actually,” senior Quinn Callahan said of adjusting to the new regime. “We review a lot, do a lot of work in the classroom, and then come out and rep it.”

Those practice reps have been key to the Knights building a foundation for success with a new coach.

“This year we’re working a lot harder,” Hodgkin said. “People are a lot more fired up, ready to go, get back in the season.”

“Our mantra is kind of ‘working hard to get better every day,'” Keene said. “We don’t talk a bit about winning and losing. We just talk about trying to get better every day.”

Keene called his roster “green,” with only three experienced seniors and a handful of underclassmen who saw playing time last year.

And none of them have experience in Keene’s system, which is one that Hodgkin said is all about power.

“A lot of just gut, trenches, running through the wall,” said Hodgkin, who noted that Keene’s system is much simpler than the “complicated” offense the Knights ran last year.

Hodgkin, a lineman on both sides of the ball, said things aren’t too much different for him. But for Callahan, who can play both quarterback and tight end, it’s been a learning experience.

Keene’s system may be about being physically tough, but both Hodgkin and Callahan say he wants his players to be mentally tough, too.

“I think football is a type of game that wears you down through the course of 48 minutes,” Keene said. “And it’s not necessarily sometimes the X’s and O’s that makes you able to persevere at the end of the game. It’s mental toughness. When you don’t think you can make another play, do you have the mental toughness to make another play? And yeah, we’ve been stressing that a lot.”

“I think Coach Keene is helping us build more mental toughness to make Friday nights easier,” Callahan said.

The Knights will need that mental toughness, because easy nights are rare in Class C South.

wkramlich@sunjournal.com