(ABC 6 News) — Last season, in Brady Kurtz’s first year as head coach of the Bulldogs, he flipped the script, going from a previous record of 2-6 to 7-1.

“Last year, just really focused on culture,” Kurtz stated. “And this year, in Year Two, the fact that a lot of that’s in place, kind of like I just mentioned earlier, the seniors just taking ownership of that and saying, ‘This is how we do things here.’ It’s let us coaches just focus on the schemes, the X’s and O’s, all the logistics the coaches have to. And we let the players take care of the program.”

Heading into this year, the team is a young group of puppies after losing their top rushers, but make no mistake these Bulldogs still have plenty of bark.

“There are — everybody just wants to be a part of this,” senior quarterback Hayden Helgeson added. “There’s a lot more confidence. They know that we’re capable of just being, really, a good team. We haven’t been very great the last ten years, I guess. But this kind of change in the culture, Kurtz has done a great job of doing that too, and just changing the mindset of Lake Mills football.”

Lake Mills gets let off the leash against AGWSR at home on August 30th.