Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – The Hoopa Warriors in action last fall.

By Ray Hamill — The Little 4 will feature a pair of new coaches in football this fall, including at Hoopa High.

Former Warrior Tashone Rice returns to the program and takes over from Curtis Kane as a young Hoopa team looks to make noise in the Little 4.

And Rice, who graduated from Hoopa in 2010, is optimistic the players he has available can have an impact.

“It’s going good,” the new coach said. “We’re having good turnouts with the varsity and JV players practicing together.”

Rice served as an assistant coach with the program for five years, including time as defensive coordinator in 2019.

And when the varsity head coach job became open this offseason, after a few years away from the program Rice jumped at the opportunity and was officially brought on board in early June.

“I’ve always wanted to get back into coaching,” Rice said.

Since then, the new head coach has been busy putting together a staff of assistant coaches, many of whom will be familiar to Hoopa football fans.

The new staff includes Sonny Ryles (offensive coordinator), Kyle Brown (defensive line), Notchko ‘Tek’ McCovey (assistant offensive coordinator), Angel Young (running backs), Mike Robinson (utility/football operations), Weyk Seyr Hutchinson (offensive line) and Jasper Hostler and Carlos Aguilar (defensive backs/wide receivers).

Getting the team up to speed for the season opener at Trinity later this month, however, will be a challenge.

Rice and his staff have have just three returning players on the roster and the Warriors will lack varsity experience at the start of the campaign.

However, a strong class of juniors offer hope for the future of the program and Rice likes a lot of what he’s seen from them, many of whom played JV last fall.

“My junior group have all been playing together a long time, so they do have chemistry,” Rice said. “And I feel like they’re hungry.”

Whether the Warriors can challenge a dominating Ferndale Wildcats team for this year’s conference title remains to be seen, but the Hoopa players will like their chances of competing against the rest of the L4.

“It’s my job to put these kids in a good position, and they’ve got to make the plays,” he said. “You’ve got to set them up for success. They have the ability.”

The players appear to be responding well to the new coach and to each other.

“They have good chemistry,” Rice added. “It’s a young group but they’re eager.”

This year’s Little 4 will switch from a round-robin home-and-away format to just three weekends of action, with the Warriors set to face off once each against Ferndale, Arcata and McKinleyville.

That means the schedule will include tough matchups against the Big 4 schools, Del Norte, Eureka, Fortuna and St. Bernard’s.

After opening the new season at Trinity, the Warriors will then play two more road games at Healdsburg and at Archie Williams, before hosting St. Bernard’s in their home opener on Sept. 24.

Floyd “Cowboy” Billings, Doobins Clark Jr. and Travis Sims Burton will coach this year’s Hoopa JV team.

Last year, the Hoopa varsity team finished the season 2-8 and was 1-5 in the Little 4.