Last fall, the Lopez Lobos snapped a six-year playoff drought thanks to an offense with a lot of star power. Now, it's time for a new set of Lobos to step up and fill some big shoes.

The team's leading rusher (Eddie Slovak), receiver (Gabriel Rios), and passer (Guadalupe Ramirez) all departed as seniors last school year. Lopez head coach Shaun Tarantola feels the team is up to the task of finding new players to shine on offense.

"They were our most explosive players we had on our roster last year and they had great seasons," Coach Tarantola said. "You don't replace those guys individually, you replace them collectively and so we're looking for a lot of guys to step up."

Despite the key losses, Tarantola says the team still has seven starters returning on the offensive side and he's excited to see what those players can do.

"We have a great group of seniors, we have a strong group of juniors, and we have a really strong group of sophomores coming up," he said. "We're looking for that all to come together and have another great year."

Coach Tarantola added that the team is really focusing on building up team chemistry during the month of August. He says that was key to the team's success last year.

Lopez finished third in district, but both of their district losses were by just one possession. Lopez had a chance to claim a share of the district title if they were able to beat Edcouch-Elsa in the final game of the regular season last year, losing by a mere seven points. That's a far different story than what this Lopez team was doing during their playoff drought.

"The years before as our record shows, we went 1-9 two times in a row, during that time most of the players were going for themselves," Lopez senior running back Kenneth Mitchell explained. "We would try to get our own highlights and stuff, but now Coach Tarantola has taught us as a team we can prosper and do way better than we did before."

Lopez starts the season in Week 1 against Juarez-Lincoln. That starts a five-game non-district slate before a Week 6 bye. The district season starts in Week 7 with PSJA Southwest and concludes in Week 11 with the reigning district champions at Edcouch-Elsa.