Tyee Totems head football coach Marshal Jones has been in an uphill battle following some good gridiron wins to start out this season.

Friday night at Renton Stadium was nothing new to this season, of late anyway, loss after loss after loss. But, hey, let's not forget this doom and gloom now present in the Totems lives like being backed into a corner in Halo 3 did start out 2-0. The Totems downed Chief Sealth and Foster to open the 2007 season. But the Totems have lost all their games since to be 0-5 in the Seamount League and 2-5 overall.

It's been easy seeing how that early season Totems momentum lost its cruise control.

"Injuries and ineligibilities," said Jones, whose team's latest loss was to Lindbergh Friday in a game that was well over before the game was actually over. The Eagles led the Totems, 49-0, after the first two quarters ended.

The only exciting things to happen and something for the Totems to hang their helmets on was the fact that they did get two scores after halftime, both run-ins by junior running back Brandon Johnson. The first Johnson score made it 49-7 in the third quarter. Then in the fourth quarter, Johnson ran it in again from inside the 10-yard line with time winding down. Also, on that second TD, it was sophomore Dante Green scoring on a two-point conversion that made it 55-15. Unfortunately, outscoring the Eagles 15-8 in the second half was little consolation for the loss.

,Tyee coaches could be heard saying things like "We can't be giving up" and other things.

Jones was not one of those coaches saying things, he was taking a conservative approach afterward. He was saying that the reason for the failures for the Totems of late were things like some players injured and out early in the season that cost the team all that momentum from a good start.

"We lost Kasper Meyers against Mount Rainier (the game following Foster), a knee injury," said Jones. "He has been out for four and a half weeks now. He will finally get back in there for our next game."

Meyers was the catalyst in the win over the Foster, running for a lot of yards and catching the ball a few times too for good positive yardage. Not only all that, Meyers is a senior and he is a captain, too. It's hard to lose that kind of leadership as well as athletic talent for any team. And guessing Jones' reaction to that question is easy enough.

"Yes," he said. "It's been hard. Devastating injuries."

So, there is that injury that's hurt and then another injury to Bryce Badure, a junior linebacker who was a leader for the team before he was hurt and missed a game after the Rams game.

"We have been taking our lumps," said Jones. "Other guys need to step up (for the injured)."

Jones has done as well as any past coach for the Totems. He started out with 19 players in training camp, which became 30 players heading into the season and through the first two games there were no jarring injuries to leaders. But then the injuries came and Jones currently has a roster closer to the 19 than the 30.

"We have 23 now," said Jones.

Jones is optimistic things will get better for Tyee football. Jones has led the Des Moines Rams' oldest age group there, the Juniors, to a championship back in 2000. He also came to the Sea-Tac Sharks and had problems at first, he said.

"The Sharks started off losing a lot but then as the years went on we did better."

Jones has good experience as defensive coordinator for Thomas Jefferson and Decatur coaching the last five years prior to this one of head coaching at Tyee. He's worked hard and will continue to do so.

"We're doing alright," said Jones.

So you're optimistic for the future of Tyee football?

"Oh yeah," he said.