NHS Football Starts the Season

It is officially the season for NHS football. Aside from the three week camp that took place during the summer, the eleven week season has officially started. With tensions high as NHS takes on past opponents from other towns, Head Coach Manny Lopes opened up about this year's season. 

“I started coaching the year after I graduated college, coached one year at Umass Dartmouth, then I went to New Bedford to coach for four years. Then from there I took a couple [of] years off and came to the high school and this is now my seventh or eighth year here, and my third year as head coach” he shared.

Coach Lopes shared that this season has been great so far, even though it is just beginning. 

“Coaching’s been great so far. It's nice to be back outside without a mask on. We still have some limitations as far as inside stuff goes, like in the weight room we still have to wear a mask, in the locker room we still have to wear a mask, but other than that everything is kind of back to normal.”

He explained that wearing masks under helmets last season was a tough ask but the team managed. 

“The players have been great, they are all super positive. Last year they went through a season we wish we could forget about and they continue to work hard every day.”

Lopes also explained that it is much easier to communicate with the players this year compared to last season. 

“This year it’s so much easier to see each other's face, to see all the kids smiling and having fun," he said. “We can see when they're down and as a coach, we watch and see when someone is having a tough day. You can see it on their face and with the mask on you can’t really see any of that.” 

The teams also start their interleague games next week and have been practicing a lot to prepare.

“The way our practices go is that we have individual work based on different positions on Tuesdays, then we do group work on Wednesday.”

Along with that, JV Coach Arbogast puts together special films for the teams, and week by week they go over assignments depending on whether the teams have a game on Friday or Saturday. The coaches also have meetings with the defensive players to go over other teams' offenses. 

“Our next five games are interleague games, we won a Share of the Week last year and now it’s our first time going into the season as defending champions with the defending title.”

Lopes also adds, “We have our three non-league games out of the way, now we're into our regular opponents we see every year, and there [are] some rivalries there. We're excited to have that aspect of the season and hopefully, we will be successful; hopefully, get into the playoffs and start that aspect soon as well.” 

The team is playing Hopkinton at home on Friday, October 8th under the lights. The theme for the game connects with spirit day which is Freedom Friday.