After Breakthrough Season, Flint Elite Football Team is Hoping to Show 2025 was Just the Beginning

Flint Elite football coach Paul Carmona saw some signs late in the 2024 season that the still-new program, which is a co-op team with students from New Standard and Madison academies, had a brighter future on the horizon. He just didn’t think it was going to arrive so quickly.

After going winless for the first two seasons of its existence, the team closed 2024 with three wins in their final four games. Carmona hoped that would provide a nice foundation for more incremental improvement in 2025, but that turned into a lot of increments at once.

The Warriors sped up their timeline in a memorable season: they won their season-opener for the first time in school history; they won a Genesee Area Conference championship for the first time in school history; and they made the playoffs for the first time in school history.

“Last year was a lot of firsts for us, and the timetable actually got here sooner than we expected,” Carmona said. “We didn’t expect to have that type of success last year. We knew this program had talent, but a lot of them were still new to the varsity level last year so we didn’t know what to expect.”

Now, they have another first this season. Despite losing some talented starters to graduation, they are returning a heavily experienced roster for the first time in school history.

“We have 23 guys that will be in their third year playing varsity football,” Carmona said. “The experience is there. The brotherhood is there. The leadership is there. They know what to expect and know what I expect. A lot of these guys were playing varsity football as freshmen and they took their licks as 14-year-olds playing against 18-year-olds, but we’re grown up now. We have a great senior cast and they hold each other accountable.” 

LaMarion Spence, a junior captain who plays center and some on the defensive line, has been in the program since he was a freshman. Even while feeling like the talent in the program was promising then, he was still caught off guard by how quickly the team put together such a successful season.

“It was shocking and surprising last year, because most programs, it can take at least five years, but for us it really only took like two years to get to that level,” Spence said. “My freshman year, we didn’t do too good at all, and then the next year we made the playoffs. I’m excited for this season.”

For seniors like Deon King, last year was an even more rewarding outcome for sticking with the football program in its earliest days.

“It’s pretty amazing, because I’ve been here since kindergarten,” King said. “To see us come up from nothing to something, I don’t even know it’s just eye-opening.” 

Hungry for a Difficult Next Step

For all of the success, Flint Elite is likely going to be fixated on takeaways from their two most recent games. Their season ended last year in the opening round of last season’s playoffs with a 52-8 loss to Montrose. They opened their 2026 season with a 44-6 loss to Monroe Jefferson in the Vehicle City Gridiron Classic at Atwood Stadium on August 28. 

Montrose has been one of the top small-school football programs in the Flint area for nearly 30 years. Monroe Jefferson advanced to the state semifinals, just one win away from getting to Ford Field, last season. In short, both programs represent where Flint Elite wants to go next, and both losses showed where they need to improve.

“It’s like, ‘Okay, this is what that next step takes,’ they’re the standard,” Carmona said. “They (Montrose) set the bar and the standard around here. And if we want to get to that level, we know what we gotta do to continue. We’re excited about the direction of our program. We’ve only got five seniors on the team, so out of 45 guys, we’ll have 40 of them back next year, plus a lot of incoming freshmen coming in. And they understand what we’re doing. They’ve been around, they’ve watched from the middle school level, so it’s trickling down all the way to our middle school, fifth and sixth grade’s first time having flag football around here, and moving on from that. So we’re just excited year in, year out to build the standard.”

The biggest issue for Flint Elite is … well … being big. The team has always had great athletes at the skill positions and speed all over the field. But physical, big teams like Montrose and Monroe Jefferson still present matchup problems on both lines due to size differences.

Spence himself plays in the trenches on the offensive and defensive lines, but he’s undersized. He makes up for it with toughness and fearlessness when he’s competing.

“I am sometimes the smallest (lineman) on the field, so it can be hard,” Spence said, noting that he likes the responsibility that comes with playing the center position and doesn’t mind the physicality. “I like hitting. And it can kinda get hard because if something goes wrong (on the offensive line), it’s on me. But I just like the position.”

In that spirit of not backing down from any challenges, the team has loaded up its non-conference schedule. In addition to Monroe Jefferson, they also play Ada Forest Hills Eastern, a large Grand Rapids area team, and Pontiac Notre Dame Prep, who advanced to the MHSAA State Finals at Ford Field last season.

“We’re excited about our non-conference schedule,” Carmona said. “That’s how the game’s played nowadays, you’ve gotta have playoff points, so we’re trying to get playoff points. We’re going to Grand Rapids and playing a big school in Forest Hills, and then Monroe Jefferson, who was one game away from the state finals and returning a lot of weapons, and Pontiac Notre Dame made the state finals. Two years ago, we couldn’t schedule these types of games, and teams wouldn’t want to play us. So we’re excited that we’re being recognized here in the city of Flint against tough teams. We’re not running from no smoke or competition. And the boys understand if they want to be college football players one day, they gotta play the better competition around the state.”

Playmakers All Over the Field

Much like last season, Flint Elite has no shortage of playmakers at multiple positions. But they will have a new look at a vital one.

Dei’on Wright, the team’s All-GAC starting quarterback, was among four seniors from last season’s team now playing at LEAD Preparatory Academy in Brighton, pursuing college football opportunities. Razach Spillers, Patrick Isaacs, and DiGion Perkins are also at LEAD Academy. Another key player from last season, Jeffrey Turner, graduated and signed to play college basketball at Lansing Community College.

Carmona and the coaching staff have been deciding between two players, senior Trysten Cooper and junior Kaden Bailey, throughout summer practices to play the position. And, in a testament to the team’s overall athleticism, both players also play defensive end, not necessarily a position most would expect to possess quarterback skills.

In fact, Cooper, a co-captain, is also the team’s punter, giving him unique versatility between those three positions.

“I’ve been playing in the off-season, like during seven on seven, but this is gonna be my first actual season playing quarterback,” Cooper said. “I’m most excited about leading my team, leading us to bigger and better things, like hopefully playoff wins.”

As you can expect from a natural defensive end playing quarterback, Cooper plays the position with physicality.

“When I’m under center, people are gonna see leadership and they’re gonna see an energetic quarterback,” he said. “I’m not the type to slide, I’m the type to drive my shoulder and hit.”

Whoever ultimately emerges as the team’s full-time quarterback this season will once again have weapons all over the field, including junior Philip Matthews (running back and wide receiver), senior receiver and co-captain King, and receiver and co-captain McDaniel, who was one of the team’s most dynamic big play threats last season. Carmona isn’t looking for a quarterback to win games on his own with all of those threats on the field. 

“We pride ourselves on depth,” Carmona said. “We are two or three deep at every position. We have two very talented players that have been neck and neck all year (at quarterback). They’ve been here every day, pushing each other, working, leading. We’ve been kind of delaying this decision to select a quarterback because they both have earned it. Dei’on was in a position the last couple years where we needed him to come out here and throw that football around and win football games for us. But our offensive line, we started five sophomores last year, those guys have grown up. So we’re in a position now where we’re not relying on one quarterback to make plays. We need a quarterback just to manage the game and make the easy plays.”

McDaniel said that being a part of a team that collectively has threats all over the field is a fun way to play football.

“For sure the unity is our strength,” McDaniel said. “It takes 11 guys to get a play to work and to get into the end zone. The contributions from everybody and everybody having a specific role to follow through with and being dedicated to their job and assignment is really what it takes to win.”

Defensively, versatility is also a strength. The team is relying on players like Noah Fuqua and several players who play on both sides of the ball, like Cooper, King, and McDaniel to lead the defense. McDaniel was a standout at defensive back last season as well, and although he loves making plays on offense, he plays the game with the mentality of an elite defender.

“At corner I love the intensity on that island,” McDaniel said. “I love to be able to compete at a high level and still be able to hit.”

King thinks, even with all of the firepower on offense at the skill positions, the team’s defense will ultimately be a strength, especially because of the discipline the experienced group brings to the field.

“Our D line, that’s like our heart and soul,” King said. “I love the discipline of football on and off the field. It helps with a lot of things off the field with pushing through adverse and hard situations.”

Playing as Favorites

Last season, with a team that hadn’t won much in its history, Flint Elite was able to sneak up on opponents. That won’t be the case this season, coming off of a league championship and returning a significant number of key contributors. 

The players are well aware of what that change will be like.

“For that target to be on our back is not unexpected, it’s, it’s where we wanna be,” McDaniel said. “We want to be able to show that we’re where we need to be and that we can strive to be even better (than last season). We lost round one to Montrose. It was a big loss, to end our season like that, it was very heartbreaking. So we’re coming back and ready to make bigger steps forward.”

Winning one league championship is a great accomplishment, but the entire premise of what Flint Elite has been trying to accomplish is creating a program that is a threat to win one every season. 

“That’s what we’re anxious to do is show teams that last year wasn’t a fluke, that we’re a constant, and we’re just getting started around here,” Carmona said.

The team has its first conference game of the season next week at home against Genesee. Genesee is the only team that beat Flint Elite in league play last season, defeating the Warriors 20-16 in week two. 

After that, the team heads to Grand Rapids to play Ada Forest Hills Eastern before getting into their big stretch of league games: at Atherton, home against International Academy of Flint and Beecher, then road games against Flint Southwestern and Bendle before closing the season at Pontiac Notre Dame.

Although the team has significant goals for this season, the players – even the seniors who are in their last year playing – have a greater collective focus on leaving the program in good shape for young players coming up.

“My individual goal is to carry out strong leadership,” King said. “I’m a senior, so I’m just trying to lay the foundation to where it can just be ongoing, so the young kids can expect this when they reach this stage of high school.”

Along with leadership, people watching the team can also just simply expect fun. Flint Elite plays a fast and exciting style of football, with a collection of players who play unselfishly and love the game.

“What got me playing is the atmosphere,” Cooper said. “I really love the atmosphere and being under the lights and just hearing everybody cheer and just hitting. I just love football.”