For the Southern Utah Thunderbirds, it's time to rise out of the ashes. Time to win some games.

Time to get out of mediocrity by recruiting from the football-rich schools in southern Utah and Nevada.

But head coach Ed Lamb said that this school's theme is about moving on with the future and not living in the past, and as such, the team has chosen "Forging Success" to summarize its goals.

In order to forge iron or steel, a combination of intense heat and pressure soften up the metal. It then can be shaped and formed into anything the creator wants the object to be. Toss a little refined ash into the metal, and you've got a stronger piece of iron than what you started with.

In the same way, Lamb has tried to forge his student-athletes with the pressure of accountability, the heat of competition and combined the dirty ashes of lessons learned from a winless season to forge a new attitude in Cedar City. His team literally is stronger than last year, and it will be interesting to see if the squad can win some games, especially with two new teams in conference play that emerged from Division II.

It'll be tough, but nothing a little heat and pressure can't solve.