The Santa Maria Cougars are coming off of a strong season. A third-place finish in district, a playoff berth, and multiple games scoring over 50 points.

This season there's a significant change for the team, as Bobby Gaytan replaced Israel Gracia at head coach. 

Gaytan comes from the Harlingen South staff where he served as the team's offensive coordinator.

The players at August practice are excited about what he's bringing to the program with his experience and knowledge.

"He knows a lot of things especially coming from a higher school," Santa Maria junior linebacker Andre De La Rosa said. "He's a very great coach. He's just taught us a lot, he helps us understand more and just helps us play the game better."

"He's a great coach," Cougars junior wide receiver Luis Otero added. "He's been on our butts the whole summer, so I feel like that has pushed us to go to our limits."

Coach Gaytan recognizes he takes over a good situation at Santa Maria with a Cougars team coming off a strong season and sees the potential this team has to make some noise in the postseason.

"Them being a returning playoff team, they do have a lot of potential," Coach Gaytan said. "We do have a good group of seniors returning and some juniors in the mix and they got an opportunity to do something this year."

"We definitely do want to win district, and we definitely want to go deeper in the playoffs," De La Rosa added. "But we just got to keep going keep working, we've been working all summer."

The Cougars begin the season with a four-game non-district schedule. It all starts with La Villa in the season opener.

The district opener comes in Week 5 against Kaufer before a Week 6 bye.