WALLACE — Fans of Miner football learned two very valuable lessons last season. The first was that quarterback Cooper Miller is the real deal. The second, which was a bit more painful, was that when you come at the champs, you better not miss.  

After a scintillating 7-1 season, that included hundreds of points, thousands of yards, and a North Star League championship, the Miners found themselves in the crosshairs of one of Idaho’s best 8-man programs, the eventual state champion Carey Panthers.  

An 86-8 loss will humble anyone, and there’s an argument to be made that Wallace shouldn’t have had to face Carey in the first round, but head coach Jared Young wasn’t accepting any excuses and acknowledged that to get to their goal, the Miners would’ve had to play Carey at some point.  

2025 should be another great year for Young and the Miners. Miller enters his sophomore year as the reigning league MVP and has most of his offense back from last year.  

Early on, the Miners will have to navigate the losses of big-play machine Julian Davis and lineman Garrett Clark, who graduated in the spring. But Miller won’t be devoid of on-field weapons, in all actuality, he may have a more diverse selection to choose from this season.

Juniors Henry Larson and Emmitt Myles will both be target hogs, Reece Williams will anchor both lines, and newcomer Lennox Radford will provide explosive plays as both a receiver and runningback.  

Miller is undeniably talented for a sophomore. As a freshmen, he was responsible for 50 touchdowns and 3,300 yards of total offense. After a busy summer, working out with some of the region's best players and specialty coaches, he's only going to be better.

“We should be ready to have another great season, and look to improve upon or finish from last year,” Young said. “We expect to compete again for the league and make the playoffs. We have a lot of returning impact players and have added a couple key pieces to replace loses of Julian Davis and Garrett.” 

8-man football is a game of depth and staying healthy. Young believes the Miners have a little more depth than what he’s normally had over the past decade. If Wallace can stay healthy, they may be positioned a little better to handle a team like Carey when the playoffs arrive. 

Defensively, Wallace had some games last season where they looked downright like bullies. But then there were a few others, the playoff loss notwithstanding, where they struggled to finish plays and allowed teams to stay in games longer than young would’ve liked.  

“Defense needs to improve upon our pressure and increase our tackle for losses and QB pressures, as well as tighten up on the backend,” Young said. “But we as a team think our defense will be much improved this season and look to limit the big plays and be more consistent each game.” 

Last season, each team in the NSL played each other twice, with both games counting toward the league record. This year, that has been cut down to once (minus a home and away with Clark Fork where only one of the games counts), which allowed Wallace to grab a few more out-of-conference matchups.  

Lakeside and Coeur du Christ were quality matchups a season ago, and Young figures them to be again this year. Wallace grabbed two games from Washington this season, St. John-Endicott and Soap Lake. Both Wallace and Soap blitzed SJE last year, which sets up an intriguing matchup between the two. With MaxPreps rankings shaping the landscape of the 1A Playoffs, the message will be the same each week. Win and win big.  

“We want to compete each week and get the first-round bye again,” Young said. “We have to be more mentally tough to hang with the likes of a Carey but I think Wallace can make a splash this year in the playoffs and compete at a higher level.” 

PRESEASON PROGNOSTICATION: I’d guess the Miners make it to the end of the year with no more than a single loss. They get a first-round bye and should make a deeper run in the 1A Playoffs. This year will be great, but I believe the 2026 season is going to be Wallace’s championship-or-bust year.