ARLINGTON — The Eagles are back in training for the 2012 football season and already have a game plan in mind for their first game against rival Marysville-Pilchuck High School at 7 p.m. on Aug. 31.

Arlington’s football players have been hard at work for more than two weeks, with regular practice beginning on Aug. 15.

“We’ve been reviewing our basic stuff and working on team building,” said varsity head coach Greg Dailer. “Most of the kids at least know the basics of what they’re doing.”

For Dailer, the beginning of practice is the perfect time to start working on building a cohesive team that can work together to achieve one goal. “You spend a lot of time focusing on plays and stuff so this is when we like to work on team building,” said Dailer, who mentioned that the team spent  part of their first two weeks doing two-a-days at camp where teamwork was the focus.

Working to build up a team will be important for the Eagles this year as they lost a number of key players to graduation. “We lost a bunch of guys, [Blake] McPherson, [Colton] Hordyk, [Bo] Brummel,” said Dailer. “In addition, Terry Dawn quit football to focus on basketball this year. We lost a lot of players.”

Despite losing a talented crop of athletes, the Eagles have managed to keep several more top performers. “Austin Wells will be our starting quarterback,” said Dailer, of the junior. “John Decker is our starting running back and Skylor Elgarico, a three-year starter, will be sort of replacing Hordyk.”

Defensively, the Eagles are working with a brand new group of players.

“We have a whole new linebacker core,” said Dailer. “Nate Lewis is really going to anchor that group.”

The Eagles are also bringing in two new cornerbacks — Jared Alskog and Max Gray. Gray has a mantra for training — TNDO — which Dailer said stands for “Take No Days Off.”

Dailer was quick to praise their one returning starter on the offensive line, John Gettmann.

“He has really done a great job,” he said. In fact, Dailer was increasingly proud of the entire group of senior players. “We have some great leadership this year,” he said. “The seniors have done a great job of including a lot of the younger players, especially sophomores.”

The Eagles also have a number of junior starters that Dailer expects will do very well this season. “We have a good group of juniors, Jared Lindberg, Brandon Alves and Hugh Duffy to name a few, are all doing really well.”

Arlington is set to play their first game of the season against the Marysville-Pilchuck Tomahawks on Friday, Aug. 31, starting at 7 p.m. M-P was recently reclassified as a 3A school, from a 4A, after a second high school, Marysville Getchell opened. Dailer doesn’t think that the reclassification will affect Friday’s game.

“They have always had a good number of players and I don’t expect their play to decline because of their classification,” he said. “The same goes for Stanwood. I think they will be better than last year even though they were 4A. They will both be just as competitive.”

The Eagles are using their team mantra, “Hard work, discipline, and character” to lead them into the 2012 season.

“We always practice hard, every day,” said Dailer. “Our goal, of course, is to win the conference and we were pretty close last year. As a team, top to bottom, I think we are very competitive this year.”