Jenison Football Broke Its Playoff Drought. Two Games Into 2026, It Looks Like No Accident.
The lights at McKenzie Stadium come on the same way they have for years, one bank at a time, until the field goes from dusk to daylight and the visiting team's band starts warming up somewhere behind the fence. Parents still line the fence by the end zone with the same folding chairs. The concession line still backs up past the ticket table by the second quarter. None of that has changed.
What has changed is what's riding on the games themselves. Last October, the Jenison Wildcats qualified for the MHSAA playoffs for the first time since 2018, ending a stretch of seven seasons without a postseason berth. Two games into the 2026 season, the team is 2-0, and the way those two wins happened suggests the program isn't just riding last year's momentum. It's building something with actual depth.
A high school football program can go quiet for a long stretch without anyone outside the athletic department tracking exactly how long. In Jenison's case, the gap was specific enough that the athletic department made it the headline when it ended: qualifying for the playoffs for the first time since 2018. That's long enough for an entire cohort of players to go from Cub Football through graduation without ever suiting up for a postseason game.
The 2025 season closed that gap. It's a detail that matters for how this fall reads. A single winning season can be a fluke. A program that returns to relevance after seven years and then opens the next season 2-0 is doing something a fluke doesn't usually do, which is show up again.
The Wildcats opened the 2026 season at home against Kalamazoo Central and won 27-20, the kind of result that says a team is simply better than its opponent on a given night. The follow-up, a week later, said something different. On the road against Forest Hills Northern, Jenison trailed for stretches of a back-and-forth game before pulling out a 34-31 win, the kind of result that says a team can still find a way to win when the game isn't going cleanly.
Those are two different tests. A home blowout can happen because of one dominant unit. A road comeback usually means the roster has answers in more than one place. Two games in, Jenison has passed both kinds of test, which is a better early signal than a 2-0 record alone would suggest.
The schedule doesn't get easier from here. Jenison plays West Ottawa on September 11, then works through a run against Caledonia, East Kentwood, Grand Haven, Hudsonville, Grandville, and Rockford before the regular season closes out on October 23.
What makes this stretch worth watching is what it looked like the last time Jenison played these same programs. In 2025, the Wildcats lost to Hudsonville 0-42, lost to Rockford 7-38, lost to Caledonia 7-14, and lost a close one to Grandville 26-31. The lone bright spot in that middle stretch was a 9-7 win over West Ottawa. Jenison still made the playoffs that year, which tells you the postseason berth was built on the games outside that gauntlet, not inside it.
This year, that same gauntlet is the actual test of whether last fall was a step forward or a ceiling. Beating Kalamazoo Central and grinding out a win at Forest Hills Northern is a solid start. Whether the Wildcats can turn any of those lopsided rivalry losses into competitive games, or wins, over the next six weeks is the more honest measure of where this program actually stands.
| Opponent | Date | 2025 Result |
|---|---|---|
| West Ottawa | Sept. 11 | Jenison won 9-7 |
| Caledonia | Sept. 18 | Jenison lost 7-14 |
| East Kentwood | Sept. 25 | — |
| Grand Haven | Oct. 2 | Jenison won 23-10 |
| Hudsonville | Oct. 9 | Jenison lost 0-42 |
| Grandville | Oct. 16 | Jenison lost 26-31 |
| Rockford | Oct. 23 | Jenison lost 7-38 |
Josh Lucas is entering his third year as Jenison's head coach, which puts last year's playoff breakthrough in his second season and this year's 2-0 start in his third. That timing matters more than it might seem. Programs that turn around under a new coach in year one are usually inheriting talent from the previous staff. A program that breaks a seven-year drought in year two and then opens year three with a road comeback win is showing the kind of consistency that comes from a coach's own systems taking hold, not a one-class fluke.
The athletic department's own recap of that first playoff trip put it simply:
Football Competes in MHSAA Playoffs for the First Time since 2018
It's a short sentence, but it's the kind of sentence a program doesn't get to write very often, and Jenison is trying to make sure it isn't the last time they write it.
None of this on-field turnaround happened in a vacuum, and none of it is what actually built the Friday night culture in Jenison to begin with. That credit goes to traditions that have run through both the winning years and the losing ones. The Jenison Public Education Foundation hosts a Kindergarten Tailgater before an early home game each season, where incoming kindergartners get a class t-shirt, popcorn, and a chance to meet other families before making an entrance into the stadium alongside the district superintendent. From there, elementary students form what the district calls the Kid Cats Tunnel, lining the track so the varsity team can run through it onto the field, with a discounted family pass covering admission for up to six people.
Those traditions existed during the seven seasons Jenison didn't see the postseason. They'll exist again this fall whether the Wildcats finish 10-1 or 5-6. What's different now is that the program those kids are cheering has actual results attached to it, not just a Friday night ritual their families have kept up out of habit.
The honest version of this story isn't that Jenison suddenly has a great football team. It's that a program the town kept showing up for through seven quiet years has given that investment something to point to, and the next six weeks against Caledonia, Hudsonville, Grandville, and Rockford will say a lot more than the first two games did. If you want to see it in person, the home dates worth circling are Grand Haven on October 2 and Rockford on October 23, the closing test against a team that beat Jenison 38-7 a year ago.
For residents who've watched McKenzie Stadium fill up on a September Friday for reasons that had nothing to do with the scoreboard, this season is worth paying closer attention to than most.
Fall in Jenison always comes with its own rhythms, from the traditions at the high school to the way the town settles into a new season. If you're thinking about where those rhythms fit into a move, Bialik Real Estate has spent years getting to know what makes neighborhoods like this one worth showing up for.
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