DECATUR — Elijah McIver admits the thought of quitting crossed his mind a few times.

And really, who could blame him? Week after week, game after game, McIver and his Decatur teammates trudged off the field, loss after mercy-rule loss.

It would have been easy to walk into the coach’s office, toss down his shoulder pads and helmet and simply turn his back to the football team.

He couldn’t do that to his teammates, though.

Oh, sure, plenty of others had left the Bulldog football team, unable to cope with the seemingly endless beatings administered to a team out-manned pretty much every Friday night. Elijah McIver was too stubborn to quit.

A lot of friends probably thought he was crazy to stay. But today, after helping Decatur to its first winning season and first playoff berth since before a couple of members of the team were even born, he’s glad he stayed and stuck it out.

“There were times for me when quitting seemed like a good option,” McIver said. “It would have saved me time for whatever I wanted to do. But then I said, ‘If I quit, I’d be letting my teammates down.’

“I couldn’t live with that.”

Decatur is headed to the state playoffs for the first time since 1997. The Bulldogs (6-4) earned the No. 4 seed from the 2A-4 Conference and will travel to Murfreesboro (7-3) on Friday for a first-round playoff game.

But, just a year ago, few saw this coming after the team completed yet another one-win season. The few just so happened the be the team and second-year coach Shane Holland.

McIver (6-foot-1, 218 pounds) said Holland and the coaches pushed the players to work harder on conditioning and in the weight room during the offseason, which was a stark contrast to what the players had been used to.

“I was like, ‘OK, I’ll work for it,’” said McIver, who is a starter on both the offensive and defensive lines. “I don’t know what everyone else is going to do, but I’ll try and maybe I can set an example for everyone else. Then I think once everyone else started accepting his ideas and how well he can coach us, everyone started going the extra mile.”

A lot of the credit for the program’s turnaround has been placed on a talented sophomore class, led by quarterback Victor Urquidi and his twin brother, wide receiver Mario Urquidi. And Holland agrees that the underclassmen have played a pivotal role.

But he also said that without the leadership of his seniors, the team wouldn’t be where it is today — in the playoffs.

“These sophomore could not be where they are without these nine seniors, and these nine seniors could not be where they are without these sophomores,” Holland said. “It’s taken both groups to mesh together to make the team.

“The thing I’m most proud of from these seniors is that they accepted these younger guys. There hasn’t been any jealousy.”

McIver is a leader among the nine seniors, Holland said. The coach credited McIver’s decision to play basketball last season as a key to his development into a solid lineman.

“He was a little soft last year,” Holland said. “He got into basketball and his conditioning improved. He lost weight and got into a lot better shape.”

McIver agreed that his conditioning this season was the biggest difference he has seen.

“This year I am able to stay on the field for the whole game,” he said. “Last year I’d wear down. I knew that I had to work harder and get in better shape in order to be on the field and help the team.”

The thought of quitting never entered McIver’s mind this season, and the hard work he and the rest of his teammates have put in has paid off in the best season Decatur has seen in a long time.