‘I can’t resist it.’ Martinez back on the field at Golden Valley as practice begins.

The Golden Valley High football players were going over different defensive schemes during their first official practice on Monday night at Veterans Stadium.

As players made mistakes, the coaches stopped and restarted drills.

Cougars assistant coach Mike Mondo made one thing clear to the players. If they make a mistake, he never wants them to come to the sideline and use the excuse that they didn’t hear the call.

“It’s your job to get the call,” Mondo told the players. “If you don’t get the call it’s because you’re not focused. That’s why you’re 0-10. You’re not focused.”

It wasn’t the first reference to Golden Valley’s 0-10 season last year and it won’t be the last.

“That’s our rallying cry,” said Rick Martinez, who took over the Cougars program after Dennis Stubbs stepped down this offseason. “Nobody wants to be 0-10 again. There’ s only one way to go and that’s up. Us coaches are competitive as everyone else. We’ll do everything in our power not to be 0-10.”

Monday marked the first day football teams could practice in the Sac-Joaquin Section. Players could only wear helmets with no pads on Monday and Tuesday. Players can practice with full pads on Wednesday.

Hilmar opted for a midnight practice to open the season.

“We stole the idea from Roger Canepa at Central Catholic,” Yellowjackets coach Frank Marques said. “I thought it kind of got the kids started on the right track. We had a lot of energy. We had a great practice, kids were flying around. I think it’ll become a new tradition at Hilmar.

Hilmar is coming off a Sac-Joaquin Section Division VI championship last season after catching fire at the end of the season. The Yellowjackets enter this season with high expectations with the return of running back Isaac Sharp and Justin Rentfro. Sharp was the Sun-Star Player of the Year last year after finishing with 1,329 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns.

One thing that stood out to Marques from the Yellowjackets’ first practice was their speed.

“We have so much speed,” he said. “I’m amazed at the talent we have. The difference this year is we have a lot of returning players. When we were running plays we looked in midseason form.”

Rob Scheidt is starting his 24th season as head coach at Merced. The Bears are trying to rebound from a 4-6 season.

“It’s a lot different than last year,” Scheidt said. “We have many guys returning. They know what they’re doing. Even watching film, you can tell. We have a lot of talented football players.”

Every program is dealing with an earlier start date. Member schools in the California Interscholastic Federation voted to move the start of the season up a week this year to avoid the state championship games being played so close to Christmas. They also wanted to avoid spring sports being played so close to graduation.

Most teams will play their first games on Aug. 17.

“August 17th is looming,” Scheidt said. “It’s a short time before the first game. We’ve got to get it going.”

For Martinez, that means trying to turn around the Golden Valley program. Martinez had a lot of success at Le Grand where he was the head coach for 12 seasons. Martinez led the Bulldogs to four consecutive Sac-Joaquin Section championships from 2010-2013, including an appearance in the state championship in 2011.

“It’s exciting,” Martinez said. “Still you think, ‘Am I ready to do this again?’ Especially when you get older, but I can’t resist it. I’m having a blast.”