Saguaro. Chandler. Hamilton. Mountain View. Chaparral. Basha. Mountain Pointe.
Those seven schools – and more not on that list – can all claim at one point in time they have had the best roster ever assembled in Arizona high school football.
All seven have produced Power 4 talent. Most produced NFL talent, too. Championships were won and runs of dominance were had. But there’s one other program that could have – or should have – made this list.
Marcos de Niza.
“There was quite a bit of talent,” said Roy Lopez II, who was the head coach at Marcos de Niza from 2005-2013. To this day there are still four (players) playing in the (NFL). It was a good group.”
The Padres have had their fair share of successful runs in recent years. Eric Lauer led them to a monumental upset in 2019, beating No. 3 Canyon Del Oro as the 14-seed in the 4A playoffs. Lauer departed for Mountain Pointe the next season.
Anthony Figueroa came in and established a new foundation for the program, one that took pride in the blue-collar community that surrounds the south Tempe school. The Padres have had success under Fig, but injuries have derailed seasons.
Back in 2015, Marcos went 12-3 and made it to the 4A state final. The Padres lost to Saguaro, which had one of the best teams in state history. The loss to the Sabercats was significant for Marcos. Two years prior, in 2013, some would argue the game could have gone the other way.
“With the talent that we had, it was incredible,” Lopez said. “We probably had more talent than the Chaparrals, the Saguaros and the Chandlers.”
Lopez sat on a goldmine of talent in 2013 as the head coach at Marcos de Niza.
N’Keal Harry, Byron Murphy, Roy Lopez III, Nazarath Greer, Tanner Blankenship, James Reynosa. All part of the sophomore class in 2013 that helped lead the Padres to the playoffs and a 7-5 record. Add in Isaiah Pola-Mao, a freshman that year.
Greer, Blankenship and Reynosa all stayed following the 2013 season. Harry, Murphy, Lopez III and Pola-Mao all left when Lopez took an assistant coaching role at Mesquite.
Harry went on to become a star at Chandler High School and then Arizona State. He, as well as Chase Lucas and Bryce Perkins, led the Wolves to become one of the top teams in the country, let alone in Arizona. They won the state title in 2014. Harry was drafted No. 32 overall in 2019 by the New England Patriots. He’s currently with the Chicago Bears.
Harry was drafted just ahead of Murphy, who was taken by the Arizona Cardinals at No. 33 overall.
Murphy departed Marcos de Niza for Saguaro, where he helped lead the Sabercats to a 26-2 record in his two seasons and two state titles. He played alongside Christian Kirk in his junior season. Now both are in the NFL (Kirk with the Texans and Murphy with the Vikings).
Lopez III moved to Mesquite alongside his dad where he became a star along the defensive line. He signed with New Mexico State out of high school, transferring to Arizona to finish his career. He was drafted in the sixth round of the 2021 NFL Draft by the Houston Texans, and had a two-year stint with the Arizona Cardinals before signing a one-year, $3.5 million contract with the Detroit Lions this offseason.
Pola-Mao departed for nearby Mountain Pointe to play under Norris Vaughan. He helped lead the Pride to two straight semifinal appearances before moving on to play at USC. He's now with the Las Vegas Raiders.
Four NFL players on the same roster in high school alongside talent that later led the Padres to a state championship game as seniors. It’s perhaps one of the greatest ‘what ifs’ in Arizona high school football.
“You always say shoulda, coulda, woulda, right? It’s something every coach could say,” Lopez said. “There are some great teams that I’ve witnessed since 1995. But we argue about this all the time, I believe this team would have been one of the top teams for sure.”
There’s no telling what exactly that team would go on to accomplish. Transfer was still a possibility, even if Lopez Sr. had stayed. But that was the start of a new era of Arizona high school football, when transfers became more frequent.
The Padres could have become a destination school, even with others in the area playing at a high level. Tempe was a playoff team in 2015, as was Corona del Sol and Desert Vista. Mountain Pointe was one of the top programs in the state.
Sure, this is all a hypothetical. But future NFL talent on one roster is hard to come by. Saguaro is the most recent to do it with Kelee Ringo (Eagles), Jacobe Covington (Chiefs) and Denzel Burke (Cardinals) with more potentially joining them in the next two years.
Those four helped set a new standard for high school football in Arizona, especially at the 4A level. Marcos de Niza almost did the same four years prior.
“It’s cool to see how close these guys still are. You see them in the NFL doing the jersey swaps and I still have them come up to me,” Lopez said. “It’s cool, man. You talk about living the dream, I’m living the dream.
“That (Marcos de Niza) team could have been special.”
