Completely new nonleague slate for Burroughs football

Although Mike Reily is approaching his first season as head football coach at Burroughs High, he will enter the campaign anything but wide-eyed.

Reily, a 1994 Burroughs graduate and former college player at UNLV, served as an assistant coach under Keith Knoop, who stepped down following the 2015 season after guiding the Indians for 19 years.

Reily was hired in January, giving him plenty of time to map out the Burroughs schedule for the 2016 season.

“The schedule is something that [so-athletic director] Marty Garrison and myself put together,” Reily said. “When I was hired officially in early January, there was enough time for me to have my input and add my two cents as far as teams that we felt were a good fit and teams that were going to help us get better.

“As far as some of the teams we’ve played in the past, we were interested in continuing our contracts with those teams, but some of those teams weren’t interested in playing us any longer. So we had to go searching for some other schools.”

So that prompted Reily and the Indians to completely revamp their three-game nonleague schedule.

Gone are Calabasas (45-25 loss last season), Rosemead (45-15 win) and Santa Fe (42-3 win).

Burroughs has replaced the trio with some competitive opponents in Cathedral, Royal and Diamond Ranch.

“It was my first experience with scheduling and let me tell you it was very interesting,” Reily said. “It’s kind of like you’re in middle school and you’re looking for a date to the dance; you get a few yeses, but you also get a lot of rejections. That’s pretty much how the process works. It took us a good month and a half just to figure out those three nonleague games.

“We wanted to schedule teams that were going to be competitive and games that we could get something out of.”

Opponents might have been apprehensive to schedule the Indians after the team went 10-2 last season, won a Pacific League championship and advanced to the CIF Southern Section Southeast quarterfinals, losing to St. Francis, 21-7.

Burroughs will prep for the season with a scrimmage Aug. 26 against Hart from the Foothill League.

“Even though it is just a scrimmage, we’re starting off against a program that has been known to be a powerhouse,” Reily said. “That will help us to see where we are really at at that point in the season.”

The Indians will open the season Sept. 2 at Cathedral, which went 11-2 last season, tied for first in the Angelus League and advanced to the Southeast semifinals, where it fell to eventual champion La Mirada, 45-20.

“That should be a very good test for us against Cathedral,” Riley said. “They are also a powerhouse that has enjoyed a lot of success in recent years. I’m excited and anxious at the same time to see how we will do against them.

“We are going to be a young team and that game should be a good measuring stick in telling us what we need to improve on.”

The Indians will take on Royal in their home opener Sept. 9 at Memorial Field. The Highlenders are coming off a 2015 campaign that saw them go 4-7 and place fourth in the Camino League.

“Royal might be a little bit down, but I expect a good game from them,” Reily said. ‘We are not going to take them lightly.”

Burroughs will complete its nonleague schedule Sept. 16 when it hosts Diamond Ranch. A year ago, the Panthers compiled a 7-4 record and finished second in the Hacienda League.

“That is always an accomplished program with great athletes,” Reily said. “They have always been known as a tough opponent and a very physical opponent.

“So, we are definitely not taking an easy road as far as our nonleague schedule is concerned.”

The Indians will then embark on their league campaign, opening Sept. 23 against host Hoover (2-8, 1-6 in league for seventh place) at Glendale’s Moyse Field. Burroughs will then be at Pasadena (5-5, 3-4 and tied for fifth place) on Sept. 30, host Arcadia (5-5, 4-3 for fourth place) on Oct. 7, host Glendale (1-9, 0-7 for eighth place) on Oct. 14, play host Crescenta Valley (7-4, 5-2 and tied for second place) at Moyse Field on Oct. 21, travel to Muir (3-7, 3-4 and tied for fifth place) on Oct. 28 and take on rival Burbank (6-5, 5-2 and tied for second place) on Nov. 4 at Memorial Field.

“We have seen Crescenta Valley during the summer and they always have a great program and they are always well-coached,” Riley said. “We have also seen Arcadia and they look stacked as far as athletes and I know that Burbank was playing with some young guys last year and now those guys have grown up and they’ve been playing together for a while, so they should have some good chemistry.

“I think there are quite a few teams that have a shot to get it taken care of in our league.”

For playoff competition, Burroughs, along with Burbank, dropped from the Southeast Division, considered Division V by calpreps.com, to Division VIII.

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Jeff Tully, jeff.tully@latimes.com

Twitter: @jefftsports