The Cooper Cougars are coming off their open date and are set to get district play started.

Non-district games are an important part of the season, but the road to the playoffs is paved with victories during district play.

Just about everything about the games is more intense and more serious.

It’s go time, and you can feel it.

Aaron Roan said, “You have to increase the intentionallity in everything that we do. The intensity has to increase. Non-district is non-district. Whether you are 5-0 or 0-5 or whatever in between. It doesn’t really matter. Those things matter, but what really matters is the progression of where we are right now. Everybody is 0-0 right now. It’s the second season. I’m excited about it. We have an opportunity to earning a playoff spot one game at a time, and we have our first opportunity this week against a good Rider football team.”

Cooper starts District 2-5A Division II play on Thursday night.

The Wichita Falls Rider Raiders come to town for a 7 p.m. kickoff.