It’s football season everywhere, including Mount Mercy University

CEDAR RAPIDS — The goalposts are facing in the correct direction. The blocking sleds are in place.

It’s time for football to officially kick off at Mount Mercy University.

“We’re so excited,” MD Daniels said Saturday, a day before the Mustangs hit the turf at Hadzic Field inside the Robert W. Plaster Athletic Complex.

Daniels met with his team Sunday night for the first time as a group, after they moved into their new homes on the Mount Mercy campus. He hopes there will be more than 60 players looking back at him and his assistants when they “teach them how we practice.”

On Monday, it’s showtime.

“We can hit the ground running and start developing these guys,” he said.

Monday is a day of firsts. It’s the first time the majority of high school football teams can officially start practicing. The same is true for high school volleyball, girls’ swimming and cross country.

But at Mount Mercy, this is a historic first — the first football practice ever held on this campus, for this school. Daniels, 35, is the first football coach in Mount Mercy history.

He came to Cedar Rapids several months ago from Bethel University in Tennessee, where he was co-offensive coordinator and the wide receivers coach. He also served as head football coach at Iowa Wesleyan from 2020 through the spring of 2023.

While this is the first practice for the first Mustang football team, this won’t be the first season of football. Mount Mercy will host Grinnell Aug. 24 in a scrimmage starting at noon. It also will be traveling to Simpson (Sept. 7) and Clarke (Oct. 5) for scrimmages.

Those, too, will be big, historic events. But this fall is all about building for 2026 when football really begins at the Cedar Rapids university.

“It’s setting up really good for us,” Daniels said.

The roster on the Mount Mercy website lists 63 players from across the United States — several from California and Texas, but also from Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, Georgia and Alabama.

There are, of course, plenty from Iowa, including a handful from Eastern Iowa — James Baumler from West Union (North Fayette Valley), Cody Beecher from Cascade, Tyler Bell from Solon, Daiavion Burrell from North Liberty (Liberty), Braxton Davis from Central City, Dom Kocher from Mount Vernon, Jalyn Ford (West), Jostin Vega (City High) and Mack Kuyu (City High) from Iowa City, Coda Johnson from Marion, and Alex Cain (Washington), Daythan Ehlert (Jefferson), Wyatt Eash (Prairie) and Brady Marak (Alburnett) from Cedar Rapids.

There are four quarterbacks on the roster — Bell, Eash, Brenden Woosley from Knoxville and Alex Estrada from Bay City, Texas.

Say hello to your first Mount Mercy football team.

“It’s a really talented class,” Daniels said. “They get to be part of a brand-new football program ... a lot of people have really taken to that.

“They wanted to be part of a program that puts them first.”

Daniels said this season will be big on teaching and finding out what exactly is needed to officially kick the program off in 2026. Does he need more defensive tackles? More running backs? More specialists?

He’ll find out soon and thinks the 2026 class will be even larger.

“It’s been such a whirlwind for, what, that last five or six months,” Daniels said. “I’m just ready to coach some football.”

Like it out not, it’s that season again, folks. From Iowa, Iowa State and UNI holding their media days — and the Cyclones less than two weeks from their season opener in Ireland — from NFL training camps and preseason games on TV to high schools beginning a new season with high hopes, it’s go time.

Are you ready?

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