GRASS RANGE — Shifty. Slippery. Sudden.
There is no shortage of superlatives to describe the game-breaking abilities of Grass Range-Winnett junior Randy Olson.
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"He has a way to visualize the field, and he's small enough that he can get low enough that he can cut and do things that a bigger body athlete cannot do. The laws of physics would not allow such things," Grass Range-Winnett head coach Jaxon Allen said. "If you ever get the pleasure to watch Randy Olson run you'll see that he somehow skirts the border of the laws of physics in terms of spinning out and tipping over."
"Every time I go out, if I see space I'm going to go find it and I'm going to get in that end zone," Olson said.
Olson is the head of the snake for the Rangers, which still have plenty of youth on the roster after last year's runner-up finish. But that 2025 season, which was the first football trophy in program history, wasn't a flash in the pan — instead, postseason runs like that might become the expectation.
"We told the boys, 'We don't know who we are necessarily.' We lost a huge senior class last year," Allen said. "The focus in camp was just getting cohesive and getting fluid. Really evenly keeled team in terms of talent, where we haven't had that in the past. We've had our crew we can use, then behind that everyone else is still developing."
While Olson spent 2025 throwing jump balls to cousin Jace Bantz, who is now at Montana State, he's still got the family connections this season. Olson handed off to freshman brother Ryan for a pair of scores last week, while Liam Bantz found Olson on a long scoring pass.
"It's been really nice. We've had this opportunity to play since we were in second grade, or whenever we could walk, out at recess," Olson said. "It's just been fun to get to play with each other and come out here every week and show people what we've got. We have a bunch of good, young guys coming up and they all can do good things."
Olson did unfortunately suffer a broken collarbone towards the end of Week 1, but the hope is that he can return this year to help the Rangers on another deep playoff run.
