The Richmond Senior High football team will attempt to avoid an upset and move to 2-0 on the season tonight.

The Raiders square off against Lee County in their home opener at Raider Stadium with kickoff scheduled at 7:30 p.m.

Richmond picked up where it left off after winning the state title in December with a 27-17 road victory over Providence in the season opener.

Raider coach Paul Hoggard was pleased with the results, but pointed out some areas his team still needs to improve on.

“I thought we played hard and we understood we beat a very good football team, but I hope we will play a lot smarter than we did last week,” Hoggard said. “We made some stupid errors and there were some penalties that we need to cut out. Those type of things shut some drives down for us on offense and kept some drives going for them. I think our kids know we still got a long ways to go to get to where we want to be.”

While Richmond’s goal remains to repeat as state champions, the rebuilding Yellow Jackets are looking to gain some respectability. Western Harnett blanked Lee County 20-0 last week, which spoiled the debut of the Yellow Jackets’ first-year coach Burton Cates.

Cates was hired in May to replace Jody Stouffer, who resigned in January. Cates spent 25 years as head coach at Eastern Randolph where he led the Wildcats to the 3AA state title in 2006. Cates is now hoping those results will happen again in the future at Lee County, but he admitted that turning around the struggling Yellow Jackets’ program won’t be easy.

Lee finished 2-9 last season and has gone 5-17 in the last two years. The Yellow Jackets’ last winning season occurred in the 2005-06 season when Lee finished with a 9-6 mark.

After the performance a week ago, Cates acknowledged his team has plenty of holes to fill. Cates added that trying to improve against the defending champs is going to be a tall order.

“Right now, we’re not a good football team,” Cates said. “We’re a work in process and the kids are learning us and we’re learning them. Our biggest goal is trying to improve each day in practice and hoping that will carry over into the game. We know we’re facing a tremendous challenge in Richmond County, which has a great coaching staff and a great winning tradition. After being shutout in your first game, Richmond County isn’t exactly the type of team you want to face to try to get going.”

Despite Lee’s struggles, Hoggard knows the Raiders must avoid being overconfident.

“It’s a worry and a concern, but I hope our kids realize that we better take every team we face seriously and that we’re going to get everyone’s best game,” Hoggard said. “Anybody can beat anybody on any given Friday night and Lee County has good enough players that if we’re not ready to play, they can come in here and come out on top.”

Lee returns eight offensive players off last season’s team, but the unit struggled mightily last week. Lee had an anemic minus four yards rushing and the offensive line surrendered 10 sacks. Lee used two quarterbacks in the contest as starter Dakota Hart went 4-for-9 with an interception, while backup Carson Wilson fared a little better, going 9-of-13 for 151 yards.

Though Wilson was replaced Hart in the game, Cates said the quarterback situation will stay the same versus Richmond.

“We’re not going to change anything off one game and Dakota will be back starting under center,” Cates said. “But we’re going to get a lot of people some experience this season and find out what we have.”

Cates confessed the offensive line must do a better job of run and pass blocking for the offense to improve.

According to Cates, he made some changes in the personnel up front this week.

Cates said one of the bright spots in the loss was receiver Dequan Swann, who had seven receptions for 95 yards. Swann is also the Yellow Jackets’ starting defensive tackle and a player that Hoggard said Richmond must be aware of on the field.

Raiders defensive coordinator James Johnson said from watching film that Lee likes to run the spread offense, including the option and will also line up and run the wishbone. Johnson added Lee’s passing game is mostly off screen passes.

Johnson wants his unit to raise up its intensity this week.

“I want us to play more physical than we played last week,” Johnson said. “Their starting quarterback isn’t as mobile as the one we faced against Providence, so hopefully we can put some heat on him and maybe force some turnovers.”

Cates knows his offense must sustain drives and put some points on the board to have a chance against Richmond. Cates believes his defense faces a tough task of slowing down the Raiders’ running game, which rolled up 368 yards last week.

“They do an excellent job running that triple option,” Cates said. “They’ve got an excellent quarterback and a great group of running backs that are able to run different phrases out of it. It’s going to be difficult to slow it down, but we just got to be very disciplined on and carry out our responsibilities.”

Cates said his team will need a few breaks to go in its favor to pull off the win. But Cates added that facing a team like Richmond should make the Yellow Jackets more battle tested when it begins play in the Tri-9 conference later in the year.

“Richmond County is the blueprint for the type of program we hope to be in the future, but we’re going to give it our best shot down there and we will see what happens,” Cates said. “We’re just hoping facing great teams like Richmond will help us be a better team once conference play begins.”