Following a 2022 season that saw Concord High football make the playoffs for the first time in eight years and Bow and Gilford-Belmont reach the Division II semifinals, area teams struggled to build off their successes in 2023.

Just three area teams qualified for the playoffs, and all three lost in their first games.

Here are three notes from the area football season:

Concord struggles to take the next step: Concord football entered 2023 optimistic. Last season, the Crimson Tide lost four games, all of them by 10 points or fewer. A few more lucky breaks and that could’ve meant six or seven wins and a better seed in the Division I playoffs.

But this fall, seemingly everything that could go wrong did go wrong for Concord. The Tide started the season with a blowout 41-14 loss against a talented Londonderry team. Then two weeks later against Salem, the Tide lost senior running back Eli Bahuma for the season after he felt his knee buckle during a rushing attempt.

Overall, Concord finished the season 1-7 in NHIAA play.

The Tide suffered tight losses to Alvirne on Oct. 6 (19-12) and Dover (28-27) on Oct. 20, but head coach Jim Corkum came away from the Tide’s final home game still pleased with how his team held it together on the field and didn’t just mail it in.

“I told them I’m so proud of them, the effort they put forward,” Corkum said following the Tide’s overtime loss to Dover. “I’m just happy with how our guys fought from start to finish. I hope they had fun. It’s fun to play in games like that against good teams in a competitive game. It’s too bad we came up short. I feel badly for them. I really wanted this game for them.”

Concord graduates 12 seniors, including Bahuma, who just last year rushed for over 1,500 yards and 22 touchdowns. Other notable graduates include receiver Conner Hughes, running back Jackson Borkush and tight end Oscar Humelsine Perez.

Franklin football comes one win shy of playoffs: When Tim Snow took over Franklin High football before the 2021 season, he knew the journey ahead wouldn’t be easy. The Golden Tornadoes finished his first season 0-8 and followed it up with a 1-6 campaign last year.

But this season, things finally seemed to start trending in the right direction. Franklin pulled off narrow wins over Winnisquam (24-21) and Mascoma (7-6) and entered the final week of the regular season a win away from clinching the fourth and final playoff spot in Division IV. Although the Golden Tornadoes wound up losing to rival Bishop Brady in a 3-0 slog, the positive energy surrounding the team signified substantial growth from where they’d been.

“Two years ago and part of last year, they would’ve given up, they would’ve thought nothing was going to go right, just another game for Franklin,” Snow told the Monitor earlier this season. “Now, they battle through that stuff. That’s what I hope they remember. Life’s going to throw stuff at you every day, and you’ve got two choices: You can give up, or you can fight and get back on your feet, and that’s what they’ve done.”

Quarterback Zeke McCoy guided Franklin’s play on the field, his third year as the QB under Snow. He will graduate, along with seven other seniors, at the end of the school year.

John Stark rides hot start to the season into the playoffs: In the first two years of head coach Ray Kershaw’s coaching tenure, the Generals showed steady improvement, from 1-8 in 2021 to 4-5 last season. John Stark continued that progress in 2023, finishing 5-4 in NHIAA play and qualifying for the Division II playoffs for the first time since 2018. The No. 7 Generals lost to No. 2 Plymouth, 28-8.

“Our kids fought hard,” Kershaw told the Monitor after the loss last Saturday. “They played hard through the whole entire game, and I’m extremely proud of them. They’re starting to get more comfortable with the game. We’re heading in the right direction. I couldn’t be more proud.”

While the 13-player senior class would’ve loved to have experienced a playoff win, merely qualifying for the tournament meant a great deal after their freshman seasons ended without the team winning a single game.

“(The seniors) have been waiting for (our) chance in the playoffs for a long time,” senior quarterback Blake Sutkus said. “We had a tough three years, but this year we wanted a playoff run. Unfortunately we fell short today, but I’m proud of the way we played.”