Senior Plans To Rack Up The Yards This Season

Since he took the field in the seventh grade, senior Matt Rozier has spent his Friday nights on the gridiron.

Rozier’s goal for the last year of his high school career is to continue to improve himself, boost his stats, and prove to college coaches that he is ready to play at the collegiate level.

“In my conversations with college coaches, I learned that they are very interested in seeing how much I have improved over the years,” Rozier said. 

Last season Rozier had 42 catches for 800 yards and eight touchdowns. Rozier’s goal is to increase his yardage to 1000. In order to improve, Rozier worked out with a personal trainer during summer vacation and ran track to improve. He increased his weight training and focused on footwork.

“Basically, I did a lot of running because I want to be faster than I was last year,” Rozier said. “I want to showcase my speed,” Rozier said. “I want to get more touchdowns from running after my catches. A lot of college coaches told me to work on increasing my speed.”

This season, Rozier will be catching passes from a new quarterback, junior Josh Ward. Ward and Rozier have been working hard this summer not only to improve their football skills but also to build their friendship both on and off the field. 

“We Facetimed. We hung out. We just need to get the positive energy from a friendship.” Rozier said.

Ward agrees with Rozier’s statement that a friendship will only make their relationship on the field stronger. 

“We trained after school for hours and ran a lot of routes,” Ward said. “We must be able to trust each other and rely on each other while on the field.”

Rozier is motivated to set a goal for the teams success, winning regionals and making it into the playoffs. Although Rozier had a solid season last year, he hopes to make a bigger impact in his last year of high school.

“We just need to have fun and enjoy all the hard work we put in,” Rozier said. “I want us to go past the first round of the playoffs. There has kind of been a narrative set for Sparkman football that we can’t do that. I want to be a part of the change that changes that narrative.”