Cardinal Gibbons notched plenty of firsts last year as its football team won two playoff games, claimed the Carolina Six 3-A regular-season title and finished 12-2, all school bests.
But much of that success was centered around a group of senior linemen who started on offense and defense.
New coach Henry Trevathan Jr., who coached at Broughton before leaving in 1991, welcomed running backs Austin Donnald (1,137 yards rushing in 2009) and Tim Buckley (355 yards), but the blocking corps will be new.
"We have some linemen who can do the job, but we don't have the size we had last year," Trevathan said. "We've got some pretty good kids, but everything we're doing is new to them, and they're new to me.
"It looks like last year's team hung its hat on defense, and we've got some kids back, but we've only been hitting a few days."
Trevathan said Donnald and Buckley would play both ways and need to be leaders. Quarterback Matt Koch got some experience last year.
The league has only six members, so a team might be able to start slowly and build for the league games. The conference race looks wide open. The team that is hot in October has a good shot at the title.
Pat Moser, who built a 71-24 record and won a state title during seven years at Graham, is in his second season at Orange (6-6). The Panthers are expected to make a big jump in improvement this season behind the play of Devante Pettiford.
Another likely contender is Chapel Hill, which was 5-6 a year ago but has back its primary rushers and most of its offensive line. Daniel Watson rushed for 965 yards last season. Linebacker Carlos Hill had 50 tackles and heads a defense that has six starters back.
Southern Vance (5-5) expects better things, too. Sardarius Henderson rushed for 1,089 yards in 2009, and he will be running behind veteran blockers.
Oxford Webb (4-7) has seven starters back on defense, but the Warriors gave up more than four touchdowns per game against league teams.
Northern Vance is now led by Darian Harris, the head coach at East Chapel Hill the last three years before losing his job because of county budget cuts. He inherits a team that was 1-10 last year but has an abundance of experience.
