GRAND MEADOW — After playing in the last three Class nine man state football title games and winning two of them, the Superlarks are coming into this season with high hopes again.

But the team will have to replace one of the best players ever to come through Grand Meadow if it wants to be a contender this season. Landon Jacobson, who is now at Division II Winona State University, was the top rusher and a top linebacker for GM the past two seasons. Jacobson finished second in Minnesota history with 9,053 all purpose yards and he set a GM school record with 96 career TDs.

Now the Larks will turn to junior Christophor Bain, who had 628 yards and 10 TDs last season and Zach Myhre, a sophomore who saw quite a bit of playing time last season, to replace Jacobson in the offensive backfield.

“It’s going to be real tough to fill Landon’s shoes,” Bain said. “I don’t think a lot of people can do that. We’re going to try to accomplish that and we don’t want to turn the ball over.”

Myhre learned a lot from watching Jacobson play over the past couple of seasons and he’s ready to take his turn in the backfield for the Larks this Fall.

“I worked really hard this offseason because I knew I had a chance at the starting job,” Myhre said. “I’m really looking forward to the start of the season.”

GM head coach Gary Sloan said that Jacobson was probably the best player to come through GM after the Larks won their second straight state championship in 2014, but he has faith in Bain and Myhre in the backfield. Sloan is a little more worried about replacing players like Cody Ojulu, Blake Olson, Wyatt Richardson and Jordan Milland.

“Landon was a leader and there’s no doubt about that, but we lost some other good guys too. Milland, Olson, Ojulu and Richardson were all quality guys,” Sloan said. “I think we’ve got the backs to replace our backs, but our line is more of a concern to me. We’ve got to find people to replace up there.”

GM senior quarterback Michael Stejskal said that it will be up to the whole squad to replace what Jacobson did.

“We’re going to try and get more people involved on offense,” he said. “We want to spread the ball around and I think that’ll make us a better team.”

GM will be preparing for the season in a shorter time than usual. The Larks open their season at Lanesboro 7 p.m. Aug. 22. That gives them just two weeks to prepare instead of the usual three weeks.

Sloan said the team has had to pick up the pace in early workouts.

“Everybody’s got a limited amount of time,” Sloan said. “You just have to use your time wisely. The teams that don’t have a lot of new concepts to put in and don’t have a lot of new players will be at an advantage.”