Jason Roeder doesn’t like to look down the road when it comes to preparing for football games. With the Patriots primed with seven returning starters on offense and eight on defense, Freedom will be a major player in this year’s playoff hunt.

But the only thing on Roeder’s mind heading into this week is beating East Stroudsburg South when the Cavs head into Frank Bank Field for a 7 p.m. kickoff Friday night to open the 2015 season.

Freedom handled ESS last year on the road, 35-7, to open their season and the Pates are looking forward to an opportunity to start this season off with a 1-0 start.

“We don’t want this to look like week one for us,” Roeder said. “We have things we need to clean up from our last scrimmage, where I thought we had too many dumb penalties. East Stroudsburg has some skill players that we have to be aware of, so just because we beat them last year doesn’t mean we’re going to overlook them this week.”

Despite beating the Cavs by 28-points last year, Freedom found themselves being outplayed by ESS in the middle part of the game last season. East Stroudsburg’s starting quarterback, Jacob Cirillo, didn’t play in last year’s opener either. Roeder plans to see the third-year varsity quarterback on Friday night, along with his Villanova-bound senior wide receiver Changa Hodge.

“They have a veteran QB that’s big and a D-I commit at the receiver position,” Roeder said. “Those are two things we have to worry about right off the bat. They have good skills guys and are good up front. It’ll be a good test for us.”

The Cavs finished last season 4-7, while Freedom jumped out to a 7-0 mark before ending the year 9-3.

The potential to get out to a fast start is there for the Patriots again, but Roeder knows it’s important to keep his players minds in one direction.

“The goal as a group is to be better than we were last year,” he said. “Our key points is the concept of focus and having a great performance. If we can do that Friday, we’ll be successful.”