Mike Elsbury loved to pass when he was coaching at Winnebago.

But he knows things will change now that he’s at Byron, which has always had success with a ground-oriented offense.

“We’ll still run the wing-T,” Elsbury said. “It’s still what Byron’s known for.”

Even if Elsbury keeps the Tigers’ traditional offense, a new era still begins at Byron tonight. Elsbury takes over a program that will be without either Everett Stine or Ben Dalton for the first time in decades.

Winnebago’s head coach from 2000-2006, Elsbury was an assistant last year for Byron and Dalton. Dalton retired after four years as head coach, but many more as an assistant under former coach and Hall of Famer Stine.

The Tigers (4-5 last year) and Elsbury open up at home against Evansville, Wis. (7-2) and hope to get off to a good start after having their first losing season in 16 years last year.

“So far it’s going really well with our team,” Elsbury said. “We’ve worked a lot on our team goals and things like that, and the kids are really unified. Last year was a big thing for our kids. I think this year we’re all on the same page and our focus is going in the right direction.”

Byron started 0-3 in nonconference games last year. This year’s opener will be against a program led by a Hall of Fame coach in Ron Grovesteen. In 27 seasons, Grovesteen has led Evansville to a 197-72 record.

“It’s hard to tell because we’ve never played Evansville before,” Elsbury said. “But I think they’re more in our league than Germantown (Wis.) was in our opener last year. They were really good.”

Evansville’s program and Grovesteen have recently made headlines across Wisconsin. A former female player for Grovesteen filed a lawsuit claiming she was discriminated against after she broke her collar bone at a practice last year.

— Emily Tropp