Heading into the 2020 season, Leander Rouse coach Joshua Mann had a hunch his team could reverse a recent run that’s seen the Raiders post just one winning season since 2013. But did he foresee the outright district championship his team locked up last Thursday?

“If you had told me that with COVID and everything we’ve been through that we would have played every week, qualified for the playoffs and locked up the district championship with one more game to play…I’d be lying if I thought that was possible,” he said. “I thought we were a playoff-caliber team.”

Even that statement might have been a stretch given the Raiders finished 1-9 last season. Few observers saw the Raiders the same way. But following a sixth-straight District 13-5A, Division 2 win – 49-42 over Georgetown East View – the Raiders have gone from worst to first with a game to spare. The district title marks the schools first in its 11 seasons of football.

Mann knows the title doesn’t mean the Raiders have arrived. The school’s last winning season (it’s had only three such seasons) came in 2016, and the senior class that anchors the 2020 team had to learn some valuable lessons to make this season happen.

“This goes back to the 1-9 season last year,” Mann said. “That senior class was an extremely successful class when it comes to leadership. Even though they were 1-9, they never quit. They went though the grind every day. They showed [last year’s] juniors and sophomores that they have to keep working no matter what. That really carried over.”

The players who would form the veteran core this season hadn’t tasted much success, but an influx of sophomores who’ve known nothing but success dating back to their first days in the community’s youth football program helped as well. The two groups came together and united around the theme that the best players would play, regardless of age.

“They have embraced each other, and that’s been the biggest thing,” Mann said. “There are no cliques. We are all one team. We’ve got a lot of juniors and sophomores starting, and there has been no pouting from the seniors or anyone.”

The team’s work ethic reminds him of the school’s most successful run, when a Billy Ray McCrary-led team went to the state semifinals in 2012 and the regional final in 2013.

“This team has the same kind of chemistry that group had,” Mann said. “That group came to us after we had won just two games in 2011, and they got embraced by that senior class as well.”

It’s too early to tell whether the 2020 season will mirror the Raiders’ 2012 and 2013 success. Mann knows there’s still much work to do. After just four wins in the last two seasons, Rouse is still learning to handle success.

“Week to week, we are still learning how to win,” Mann said. “Last week is a great example. We got up big and tightened up when we got close to clinching the title. This senior class, they just haven’t experienced success before, so we still have to figure out how to finish games out.”

Rouse watched East View trim a 42-21 lead to seven before steadying itself in the fourth quarter. Jace Mann intercepted two passes and the Raiders had more than enough offense behind quarterback Mason Shorb’s five touchdowns.

The Raiders will wrap up the regular season with a rivalry game against Glenn, a newer Leander ISD school that drew students from Rouse. Being able to play the game without worrying about playoff seeding should help the Raiders play with a degree of freedom.

After that, though, things get real. The Raiders won’t be just be chasing playoff wins. Each week they’ll be fighting to give a senior class that’s risen to new heights one more opportunity to put the pads on.

“The lesson this year is that you’re never guaranteed another day,” Mann said. “We talk about that at the end of every practice. Who knows what could happen next? This week we get to play a rivalry game and have fun. In the playoffs, it’s all about those 48 minutes.

“Once you take those pads off, you may never get to play again,” Mann said, speaking of his team’s seniors. “Nothing is guaranteed. When you get here, you have to take everything seriously and you can’t underestimate anyone. If you do that, you can get burned quickly and we don’t want that.”