In 2018, the Charger football team turned in an historic season, running the table in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference, capturing the regular season championship.
Conference coaches expect more of the same from Hillsdale in 2019.
The Chargers were picked to finish first in the G-MAC Preseason Coach's Poll, released Friday morning. Hillsdale captured six of a possible eight first-place votes, and finished with 47 poll points, easily outdistancing second-place Ohio Dominican, who had 40.
Findlay received the other two first-place votes, and finished third in the poll. The complete poll can be found below.
Hillsdale enters the 2019 season on a 12-game winning streak in G-MAC competition. The Chargers rolled through the final four weeks of the 2017 season, winning those games by an average of 34 points per game, with an aggregate score of 174-38.
That kind of dominance continued in 2018 as Hillsdale finished 7-0, capped off by an unforgettable 48-26 win over Tiffin on Senior Day that clinched the conference championship, the first for the program since entering the G-MAC.
But to continue that level of success, the Chargers will need contributions from a good number of new faces. The shoes of players like Chance Stewart, Trey Brock, Zach VanValkenburg, Wyatt Batdorff, Jay Rose and Drew Callahan will have to be filled by the team's deep pool of underclassmen.
2019 Great Midwest Preseason Football Coach's Poll
| PLACE | TEAM (1st PLACE VOTES) | POLL POINTS |
| 1. | Hillsdale (6) | 47 |
| 2. | Ohio Dominican | 40 |
| 3. | Findlay (2) | 37 |
| 4. | Tiffin | 34 |
| 5. | Walsh | 25 |
| 6. | Alderson Broaddus | 21 |
| 7. | Kentucky Wesleyan | 12 |
| 8. | Lake Erie | 8 |