With a new head coach in charge for the second straight campaign, there no doubt will be several “firsts” this season for the Mexico High School varsity football team. Posting the first “W” of 2008 obviously ranks at the top of the list for the Bulldogs and their fans.

Wright City, a Class 2 member of the East Missouri Conference, will be the first opponent for the North Central Missouri Conference Bulldogs, who moved down to Class 3 for this fall and next. Kickoff is 7 p.m. today at Hawthorne Heights in the first of three consecutive home games to start the Mexico season.

With the Wildcats winning just three games last year and the Bulldogs only two, both teams obviously have room for improvement. Who that comes against over the next 10 weeks remains to be seen, but the fact that two teams, not just one, now qualify out of each district for sectionals should be an added incentive to get better as the season progresses.

“We can’t be looking that far ahead,” MHS coach Devin Brown said Thursday as the clock ticked down on his head coaching debut. “We’ve got a lot of work to do before then.”

With the calendar dictating fall sports practices couldn’t get under way until Aug. 11, gridiron teams around the state have had fewer days than in some years to get ready for a new campaign. Last weekend’s jamboree at St. Dominic High School in O’Fallon gave the Bulldogs a welcome change of face when it came to lining up against somebody, but maybe not much more than that.

“We kept things pretty basic, pretty simple. For us, it was more a case of can we get lined up correctly and make the basic plays,” Brown said. “We did OK, but we also missed a lot of assignments and need to get a lot better.”

Mexico returns just two starters on each side of the ball, thus making for a lot of new names and numbers on the field tonight. Inexperienced at some positions and undersized at others, the Bulldogs could benefit greatly from a strong outing against Wright City, since they begin a stretch of four consecutive league games, two at home and two away, starting next week against Kirksville.

“It would be nice to get off to a good start and start eliminating mistakes,” Brown said. “At the start of the season, everybody is in the same boat, there’s a lot of excitement and emotion going around and you just hope to keep it going in the following weeks.”

Mexico was outscored by almost a 3-1 margin last fall after snapping a 10-game losing streak with two wins to open the season. New quarterback Austin Melvin, 2007 rushing leader Kurt Loyd and speedy receiving threat Michael Howard will operate from a spread offense, while returning tackle leaders Garrett Test and Zach Yager will spearhead a 4-2-5 defense from their linebacker positions.

“The No. 1 thing I hope to see is to see my team compete on every play of the game,” Brown said. “I want them to channel their emotions, come out and play with enthusiasm and confidence, and fly around and make things happen.

“It really is a long season and we have to play it one game at a time.”