PHARR – Friday night, the silver and black was back.

The Raiders cruised by the Wolverines 44-3. It was a performance that was led up front by a big and strong attack.

“It felt good,” said PSJA North junior tackle Adrian Basaldua. “It motivated us to do more and more the whole game.”

Play after play, the offensive line pushed their opponents back. The domination up front helped the Raiders score on their first four drives.

“We were just focused most of the time,” said PSJA North junior guard Joel Iracheta. “We just need keep on working on focusing and focusing. That’s the most important thing that we have to do here.”

North has some big blockers up front. Three of their five linemen are over 300 pounds.

That strength and size fueled by hard workouts and tasty tacos. That’s according to head coach Marcus Kaufmann.

“They go over here and eat that every morning,” said Kaufmann. “After school they say, ‘hey coach, let’s go get some tacos.’ They eat that all the time. It might be that. I’ve gained about 25 pounds since I moved over here as well from that.”

Call it taco power. Call it good preparation.

Whatever you call it, it’s worked so far.

North hopes to grind out wins by wearing down the other team.

“This offseason and summer we just worked hard, listened to what the coaches were giving us,” said PSJA North junior guard Frankie Saucedo. “We just stuck to the plan.”

“We do the sled, we come outside, we condition, we run after practice,” said Basaldua. “We go to the weight room.”

As good as the Raiders’ o-line has been so far, Kaufmann reminds us the work has only begun.

North has many more games this season, including this week’s against Harlingen South.

“No matter how good they did, we always find something else,” said Kaufmann. “There’s five of them. One of them messes up, it’s a team deal up there. There’s a group of them. We get on one of them about what they’re doing and all of them take it personal. So it’s a good deal. It’s a good group of kids.”