Friday night under the lights had nearly everything a hometown football opener in the 98848 should have. The parking lot at Quincy High School was nearly full, the home stands were packed, the pep band was playing, the cheerleaders were working the sidelines and a beautiful September evening was beginning to cool as the Jacks opened their 2026 season. The only thing missing was the game Quincy hoped to see. Prosser quickly demonstrated why the Mustangs entered the season as the preseason favorite to win the Central Washington Athletic Conference, handing a rebuilding Quincy team a 49-0 loss that showed just how much work lies ahead. It also raised another question worth asking after opening night: If these young players are going to spend this season rebuilding Jackrabbit football, just how much noise can the rest of Quincy make while they do it?
TL;DR
Quincy opened its 2026 football season Friday night with a 49-0 home loss to Prosser.
Prosser entered the season as the preseason coaches’ pick to win the CWAC, while Quincy was predicted to finish at the bottom of the conference.
The Mustangs controlled both sides of the line of scrimmage, while Quincy struggled to protect its quarterbacks, establish the running game and sustain offensive drives.
Quincy is rebuilding after a 1-8 season in 2025 and the graduation of 13 seniors from last year’s roster.
Quincy players continued competing and supporting one another despite entering the fourth quarter down 49-0.
More than 50 local businesses, farms, families and individuals are sponsoring Quincy football this season, while a strong crowd filled the stadium for opening night.
Washington football fans already understand the idea of a “12th Man.” Maybe the 98848 should start building a Jackrabbit version of its own.
Prosser Shows Why It Is the Team to Beat
There is no reason to disguise what happened on the football field Friday night. Prosser was the better team from beginning to end, and the 49-0 final score accurately reflected the difference between the two teams on opening night.
The Mustangs looked remarkably settled for the first game of the season. Prosser moved quickly between plays, executed consistently and repeatedly used short passes to work its way downfield. Quincy had difficulty getting the Mustangs’ offense off the field, with missed tackles and consistent execution allowing Prosser to sustain drives and keep the Jackrabbit defense under pressure.
Quincy faced even greater difficulty when it had the football. The offensive line struggled to keep Prosser out of the backfield, leaving Quincy’s quarterbacks with little time for receivers to complete their routes or passing plays to develop. The running game faced much the same challenge, with Prosser frequently meeting Quincy runners before they could generate meaningful positive yardage.
Penalties compounded those problems. On one possession, Quincy benefited from a 15-yard Prosser penalty that helped move the Jacks to approximately the Mustangs’ 35-yard line, one of their deepest advances of the night. Penalties and negative plays quickly erased that field position, however, and Quincy was unable to turn the opportunity into points.
There were occasional flashes. During the third quarter, one of Quincy’s quarterbacks escaped pressure and scrambled for roughly a dozen yards on one of the Jacks’ strongest offensive plays of the night. Those moments were rare, and Prosser had established its 49-0 advantage before the fourth quarter began. Neither team scored during the final period.
A Rebuilding Team Has to Start Somewhere
Friday night’s result also needs to be understood in the context of where the two programs entered the season.
Prosser came to Quincy as the preseason coaches’ choice to win the CWAC. The Jacks entered the year at the opposite end of those expectations after finishing 1-8 in 2025 and graduating 13 seniors from last year’s roster. That left Quincy replacing a significant amount of experience while trying to rebuild from an already difficult season.
There are obvious areas where improvement will be needed. Better protection would give the quarterbacks more time to let plays develop, while more consistent blocking could help establish a running game and take some of that pressure away. Quincy also has opportunities to improve its tackling, reduce penalties and find ways to sustain offensive possessions long enough to give the defense more time off the field.
Those are not criticisms unique to Quincy after an opening-night loss. They are the work of building a football team, particularly one replacing experienced players. Friday gave the players and coaching staff a difficult but unmistakable starting point. The coming weeks will show what they can build from it.
There was also something encouraging in how the players responded when the game became difficult. Both Quincy quarterbacks faced repeated pressure and continued returning to the huddle. Teammates encouraged one another, the sideline remained engaged, and the Jacks continued competing even after a comeback was no longer realistically possible.
A 49-0 loss should not be repackaged as a moral victory. The Jacks have work to do, and they know it. What Friday did demonstrate is that there are young men on that field willing to keep playing when football stops being fun. That willingness gives players and coaches something upon which improvement can be built.
Quincy Is Already Showing Up
The other encouraging part of Friday night was visible everywhere outside the lines.
More than 50 businesses, farms, families and individuals are listed as sponsors of Quincy football for the 2026 season. They include agricultural businesses, restaurants, barbershops, retailers, service companies and local families. It is a remarkably broad cross-section of a community choosing to put its name and resources behind high school athletes.
The stadium reflected that support Friday night. The parking lot was nearly full, the home stands were packed, the pep band played throughout the evening, cheerleaders worked to keep the crowd involved, and students continued encouraging their classmates. Even with Quincy trailing 49-0 entering the fourth quarter, most spectators remained until roughly the final seven to 10 minutes, when a few people began filtering toward the parking lot ahead of the postgame traffic.
There is no need to lecture Quincy about supporting the Jacks. Quincy already is.
Maybe the more interesting question is what happens if we decide to take something that already exists and make it bigger.
What If Quincy Became the 12th Man?
Anyone who follows professional football in Washington already knows the concept. The Seattle Seahawks have spent decades celebrating their fans as the “12s,” based on the idea that the 11 players on the field gain another member of the team from the thousands making noise around them. Seattle retired the No. 12 jersey for its fans in 1984, and the raising of the 12 Flag before home games has become one of the franchise’s best-known traditions.
Nobody is suggesting Quincy High School needs to become Lumen Field. That is not the point.
The idea behind the 12th Man scales remarkably well to a hometown football stadium. Eleven Jacks step onto the field. Everybody else in the 98848 gets to decide what kind of home field surrounds them.
What if Quincy decided that Jackrabbit home games were going to become the loudest games in the CWAC? What if visiting teams knew before the bus ever reached the stadium that playing in Quincy meant playing in front of a hometown crowd that never stopped making itself heard?
There are already more than 50 football sponsors behind the program. The students are there. The cheerleaders are there. The pep band is there. Parents, grandparents, friends, school staff and longtime Jackrabbit fans are already filling the stands. We would not be building support from nothing. We would simply be giving the support already there an identity.
Maybe somebody makes Jacks 12th Man shirts. Maybe hats follow. Maybe a giant No. 12 starts appearing in the student section. Maybe someone eventually comes up with a Jackrabbit 12 flag of our own. Maybe none of those particular ideas happen, and Quincy comes up with something better.
The merchandise is not really the point either. The identity is.
There is something powerful about young athletes looking across the sideline after a bad series and seeing a hometown that has decided it is going to be obnoxiously, relentlessly and unapologetically behind them. There is something powerful about a visiting team trying to communicate while a Quincy crowd is making enough noise that players have to strain to hear. There is something powerful about young Jackrabbits growing up watching Friday night football and learning that this is simply what Quincy does when its team takes the field.
That kind of tradition has to begin somewhere.
Why not now?
What This Means to You
Quincy football has plenty of work ahead after Friday night’s opener. The Jacks need better protection, more consistent tackling, fewer penalties, a productive running game and longer offensive possessions. Players and coaches will spend the coming week studying film, practicing assignments and trying to correct the problems Prosser exposed.
The rest of us cannot make those corrections for them. We cannot block a defensive lineman, make an open-field tackle or complete a third-down pass from the stands. Those responsibilities belong to the people wearing helmets and the coaches preparing them.
What a community can control is the environment in which those young people do that work.
More than 50 sponsors have already demonstrated that investment does not disappear because the program is rebuilding. Families continue getting players to practices. Students show up for their classmates. The band practices its music. Cheerleaders prepare for Friday nights. Coaches spend their evenings working with players, and fans fill the stadium.
Those are not separate pieces of Jackrabbit football. Together, they are the program.
If the 2026 season is going to be a rebuilding year, perhaps rebuilding the culture around Friday nights can happen alongside rebuilding the football on the field. The goal does not have to be pretending a loss is a win or cheering mistakes. It can simply be establishing that when somebody puts on a Quincy uniform and walks onto the field, the 98848 is going to be unmistakably behind them.
Imagine the Battle of the Basin against Ephrata with that kind of atmosphere.
Let’s Make Home Feel Like Home
The Jacks have six days before traveling to Selah on Friday, Sept. 11. One week later, they return home Sept. 18 for the Battle of the Basin against Ephrata.
There will be plenty to work on before either game, and Friday night’s film will provide no shortage of teaching opportunities. The players will have to get back to work, and the coaching staff will have to help a rebuilding roster take another step forward. Improvement may come incrementally rather than all at once, but that gives Quincy something tangible to watch for as the season develops.
When the Jacks return home against Ephrata, the rest of us get another opportunity too.
Bring the Jackrabbit gear. Bring the kids. Let the pep band play. Let the cheerleaders lead the stadium instead of having to manufacture the energy themselves. When the defense needs a stop, get loud. When the offense has a rough series, make sure the players still hear their hometown behind them when they return to the sideline. When something finally breaks Quincy’s way, make the other side of the stadium know exactly where it is playing.
Maybe somebody really should make those Jacks 12th Man shirts.
Friday night’s opener began with a nearly full parking lot, packed stands and a community ready for another season of Jackrabbit football. Prosser left little for that crowd to celebrate on the scoreboard, but the people of the 98848 showed something important simply by being there.
Now imagine if we turn it up.
If the Jacks are rebuilding, let them rebuild inside the loudest, proudest home stadium in the conference. Let visiting teams learn that Friday nights in the 98848 mean facing 11 Jackrabbits on the field and an entire community behind them. Let’s build a culture of home town Jacks pride that is the envy of every team in the CWAC.
That sounds like a home-field advantage worth building.
