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LANCASTER – At the end of most practices, Lancaster football players do six wind sprints. They yell out a round of the playoffs after each one, and when they're finished running, they've made it to the state championship and their goal for the season:

"Sixteen and oh," senior defensive end Anthony Gilbert and offensive lineman Travon Carter said, almost in unison.

Pretty high hopes for a team that didn't make the playoffs last season. But it's not just Gilbert and his teammates who are talking big. So is their coach.

"We've been pretty consistent, and I think it's time to move up to the next level," said Andrew Jackson, Lancaster's coach since 2002. "This could be my most talented team."

That includes the teams Jackson coached at Austin Reagan, which he led to a Class 4A state semifinal in 2001. Lancaster returns every defensive starter, including four players in the secondary who are among the top 100 in Rivals.com's state recruiting rankings.

Lancaster also has six starters back on offense and added Laredo United transfer Skyler Scott, a receiver in Rivals' top 100.

So depth shouldn't be a problem as Lancaster tries to improve on last year's 6-4 season that Jackson had expected to last a few weeks into the playoffs. The playoff hopes faded when Lancaster lost two quarterbacks to broken ankles and another to a dislocated kneecap.

That string of injuries was almost impossible to overcome. But Jackson hopes his team will have the grit to deal with any kind of adversity this season. He wants Lancaster to have the toughness some said it lacked years ago.

"When I started, people said Lancaster has a soft mentality," Jackson said. "They can run fast, but they don't like to get hit."

Yes, Lancaster is known for running fast. The boys track team has won three 4A state titles and the girls team has won eight straight. Jackson wants to develop that kind of tradition in football.

That will take years. But it starts with this one.

"This is the year," senior receiver Freeman Kelley said. "This is the year we're going to show everybody what we can do."

REX C. CURRY / Special to DMN

Lancaster's starting defensive backs (left to right) - Kerry Lewis, Joshua Brown, Demontre Hurst and Phillip Harvey - all are ranked among Rivals.com's state top 100.

Lancaster gets that chance during an opening week that includes Highland Park going for victory No. 700, a clash between rivals Bishop Lynch and Jesuit and six local teams playing out-of-state competition at Texas Stadium.

Friday's Lancaster-Carter matchup might get lost in all that, but the game is a chance for Lancaster to prove itself.

The athletic offices at Carter, which dropped to 4A this season after years of playing schools with double or triple its enrollment, are filled with football trophies. But at Lancaster?

"I've never seen a football trophy," Gilbert said. "I've seen track, volleyball and some basketball, but no football."

"Maybe this will be the year we get that trophy," Carter said.