Lovejoy High School football outscoring opponents by leaps and bounds this season
LUCAS, Texas — After losing standout senior quarterback Ralph Rucker to graduation last season, nobody would have been surprised if the Lovejoy Leopards of Lucas, Texas took a step back in a season they are retooling and breaking in a new prep quarterback.
However, nothing could be further from the truth as Lovejoy has picked up right where they started in their highly successful 2020 season.
Despite losing Rucker, who was the unanimous MVP selection in District 7-5A Division and threw for 3,417 yards and 47 touchdowns against only three interceptions last season, Lovejoy hasn鈥檛 skipped a beat from their high scoring and winning campaign last year.
Overall, the Leopards might even be better than last year since they have outscored their opponents in four games this season, 233-48. So far, the Leopards are averaging an astonishing 58 points a game on offense. However, on defense, Lovejoy is only giving up 12 points a game.
While some might have expected Lovejoy to 鈥渞ebuild鈥� and 鈥渞etool鈥� as one district coach put it, the Leopards have reloaded quicker than the Matrix and are back bigger and better than ever before.
Behind the ever improving play of new quarterback Alexander Franklin, the high-scoring Lovejoy Leopards have beaten Bryan High School 44-14, Sulphur Springs 71-7, Princeton 59-21 and Dennison 49-7.
As Lovejoy enters into a bye week, they are riding a four-game win streak and are 2-0 in district play and are led by coach of the year Chris Ross, one of the brightest offensive minds in all of Texas high school football.
Coach Ross said that one of the keys to his winning brand of high scoring and high-octane football is, 鈥渂uilding a winning culture鈥� among all his players and, 鈥渢he development of his quarterbacks.鈥�
Coach Ross and his highly advanced coaching staff, each season spend a large amount of time teaching their quarterbacks the sophisticated offensive playbook that has brought Ross major success in every place he has coached.
After this week鈥檚 bye, the Lovejoy Leopards expect to continue their winning ways as they play district rivals to close out their regular season.
After the bye week, Lovejoy plays Prosper Rockwell on Oct. 1 at the Children鈥檚 Health Stadium in an away game in Prosper, Texas.
The Leopards next home-game will be on Oct. 7 when they play Frisco Memorial at Leopards Stadium in Lucas.
On Oct. 15, the Leopards will take their high scoring team on the road again against Lake Dallas High School and will play at Falcon Stadium in Corinth, Texas.
Then, on Oct. 22, Lovejoy High School plays a home game against their district rival Frisco, followed by an away game against Frisco Lebanon Trail on Oct. 28 at Memorial Stadium in Frisco, Texas.
The Lovejoy Leopards close out regular season play and have their Senior Night against Frisco Liberty, in their last home-game of the season at Leopards Stadium.
Lovejoy High School鈥檚 football stadium was opened in 2006 and has a 7,341-person seating capacity and has an artificial surface.
Coach Chris Ross and the high scoring Lovejoy Leopards play a high-octane brand of 鈥渧ertical鈥� football where they aggressively attempt to advance the football down the field on every play and they take no downs off.
Many high school football pundits and astute followers of the biggest game in North Texas believe Lovejoy has the right stuff to go far in the playoffs again this year as they play their relentless brand of winning football.
This is an unedited user writing submission. The views, information, or opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Best Version Media or its employees.