By Vickram Agarwal

St. Ignatius College Preparatory School’s football team opens its West Catholic Athletic League (WCAL) play carrying the heaviest trophy in program history.

Last December, the Wildcats capped a season that started 2-6 with seven straight wins, closing it out with a state championship – the first in school history – under first-year head coach JaJuan Lawson. This year’s team has a fast start of its own: 3-0 through non-league play, with wins over San Marin, Marin Catholic and a tighter one over Acalanes, a program St. Ignatius had lost to a year earlier. But almost none of the group responsible for last December is still on the roster.

St. Ignatius graduated 39 seniors from that championship team, and this year’s Wildcats have spent the season figuring out, in real time, who they are without them.

That turnover showed up before the pads went on.

“We were kind of lacking leadership in the first half of summer,” said receiver Mare Jackson, one of five players who stepped into the void as team captains, alongside defensive lineman Samiu Langi, tight end Elijah Farah, linebacker Jack Riedy and Zachary Elias.

“In order for us to move on from that, we needed people to step up.”

Outside the program, nobody quite knew how the team would take shape after those large departures.

What has followed in the season kickoff has looked less shaky than that setup might suggest.

On the team, the players worked so that the title did not change their mentalities.

Jackson framed it as continuity.

“The title didn’t really change expectations,” he said. “Going into that season, we knew the team we had, and the title – and even the year before that, we were in the open – so we knew the expectations that we had and the way we had to carry ourselves going forward.”

The results have started to catch up with that attitude. Players and the community alike are displaying belief in the team, hoping for another chip at the end of the season.

There’s some swagger mixed into that confidence, too, and it is aimed at specific games. St. Ignatius’s WCAL schedule runs through Archbishop Riordan, Saint Francis, Bellarmine, Junipero Serra, Valley Christian and Archbishop Mitty before the season is through, and a few of those already have players’ attention. Jackson is circling the trip to Serra, a WCAL heavyweight.

“They’re a good team this year, and I know we’re going to be the underdogs in that game,” he said. “Ready to upset, shock the world.”

Langi is looking ahead to playing Riordan, a football powerhouse.

“We’re playing away; we’re playing in their house. It’s going to be great to be over there and try to dominate their field, in their home.”

St. Ignatius has won the last five meetings in the football series and leads the all-time rivalry against Riordan, 57-20-3.