The Mission Bay High School varsity football program has followed its unprecedented, undefeated CIF championship run with an offseason agenda fit for next year’s champs. Coach Willie Matson’s whistle never really got a break. He returned to the field as soon as the season ended. Not all programs have that luxury. “There are a few schools that are lucky enough to have the situation set up the way we do, but a lot of schools don’t,” Matson said. “Immediately after the season — we’ve been doing this a couple months — we start with stretching, plyometrics, conditioning and weight lifting. That’s the physical aspect. We also stress teambuilding, the discipline that comes with that. We establish attitudes about our expectations. That’s the part I like the best.” Matson likes to train his players to grow stronger and faster in order to develop their game. But he said it is character that counts. “It’s great seeing the guys become leaders,” Matson said. “That’s more important to me; to develop leadership and the discipline that comes with it more than anything. This is a real positive time of the year for me.” Receiver/linebacker Marcus Jasper is among those players learning the leadership ropes. He will be a senior next season and plans to act like one. “We have to basically show these guys what it took to go undefeated and win the CIF championship,” Jasper said. The Mission Bay squad won its games last season by an average of 26 points, an accomplishment by anyone’s standards. “Last season was a storybook season,” Matson said. “Very rarely do you go 13-0 and win the CIF championship going away. It was a magical season. But what I hope it has done, and I think it might have, is show that the young guys are just as hungry. They said, ‘Hey coach, we want to do it again.’ And they really think that they can do it. There’s a lot of excitement, even this early in the year.” Many of the returning playsers are flying high because they received their CIF championship rings in March. Now it’s Matson’s job to move past the celebration. “It’s a real positive group with a lot of energy,” Matson said. “It’s a lot of fun working with them. I tell everybody that comes up they are a really nice group, but we’ll find out how mean they are. They are a nice group of kids, but we’ve gotta be tough.”