Senior John Ryan huddles his squad before calling a defensive play during an August scrimmage.

The 2009 Butler Bulldogs enter the 2009 football season with a new attitude coming off a dreadful 2008 campaign that left them without a win. The Bulldogs are returning 19 starters from last year’s team and they look to bring quality football to the town of Butler.

Back in the 1990’s the Bulldogs won 5 out of 10 State Titles and a style of winning that the town of Butler got accustomed to it. Head coach Jim Matsakis knows Butler fans are used to winning and he feels his has a squad that can bring that tradition back to Butler.

“This is a football town.” Head Coach Jim Matsakis said of Butler. “Our community supports us no matter what.  They eat, sleep and breath football.”

Matsakis’ Bulldogs are a Group 1 team that will be gaining from the new conference realignment. They are used to playing bigger schools like Delbarton, DePaul, Madison and Montville.  With the new schedule Butler will be facing mostly fellow Group 1 schools.

“On paper the new schedule benefits us.” Matsakis explains. “But I am cautiously optimistic because we are still facing all new opponents, all who work as hard as us and some of whom are in our same scenario as us (referring to switching from a schedule with bigger schools to one with evenly sized schools).”

OFFENSE

Offensively the Bulldogs will feature one of the most electric players in the conference in Andrew Turzilli. The 6’5”, 180lb Kansas bound senior has the  ...Read More