In one of the few times as Lompoc High's football coach, Robin Luken fretted over a game.

The game wasn't even on the schedule yet, but Luken didn't want any part of it. It was March, six months from the season opener, but playing a powerhouse parochial school from Los Angeles County didn't appeal to him.

But he needed to fill a game, so he wavered for a day.

It took a man in a wheelchair with cancer to convince Luken that opening the season tonight against nationally ranked Oaks Christian of Westlake Village wouldn't be so tough.

“He was in his wheelchair, and he says, ‘You know what? Out of all the years you've been here you have never backed down to a challenge,'” said Luken, entering his 16th year. “Coming from a guy like that who has been challenged all his life and ended up with this disease that inflicted him and put him in a wheelchair, he has a bigger challenge by wanting to stay alive than I would have playing Oaks Christian.”

Bryan Ayer won't be at Huyck Stadium tonight at 7:30, when Lompoc hosts Oaks Christian, ranked third in the country by Sports Illustrated.

Ayer at 39 died in April, losing a three-year bout to osteosarcoma, a rare form of cancer, but Luken's never forgotten the man who talked him into making tonight possible.

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On paper Lompoc-Oaks Christian is a mismatch with Oaks Christian's plethora of talent. The Lions boast the nation's No. 1 recruit in Notre Dame-bound senior Jimmy Clausen. Nine other players are being recruited by NCAA Division I programs, compared to none at Lompoc.

Back in March things weren't even. That didn't stop Ayer, the former successful basketball coach working as an assistant athletic director at the time. He approached Luken about signing a two-year contract with Oaks Christian.

“He put the pressure on me and said, ‘Now you go home and think about it,'” said Luken about scheduling a program that had won the last three CIF Southern Section Division XI championships. “I came back the next day and he said, ‘Well, are we going to back down, or our we going to take the challenge?'

“I said, ‘Well, when you put it that way, Braves never back down from anything.'”

Unlike any of the teams he's coached against while at Lompoc, Luken said tonight will be his toughest.

Aside from drawing a game plan against Oaks Christian's great skill position players in Clausen and USC running back and defensive back recruits Marc Tyler and Marshall Jones, Luken still has mixed emotions about taking on the game.

“It's an unfair advantage that they have because they can go get their kids. They don't call it recruiting, but they get them,” said Luken of the Lions, who recruiting experts say have three of the country's top 10 seniors. “You read the article in USA Today. Wendell Tyler's son (Marc) lived with Clausen for two years so he could go to school there. What the heck? That would be like me going down to Los Angeles finding some guy that I can see runs fast and having him move in with me so he can play. What would the CIF do in that case? I would be suspended and the kid wouldn't be eligible.”

“But our kids always rise to the occasion. I think it's going to be a close game. They haven't played a team like us.”

Bill Redell, Oaks Christian coach, agreed with Luken. Not on the recruiting part, but on the Lions not having played a program during its 31-game winning streak the caliber of Lompoc, which won Southern Section Div. X titles in 2002 and 2003 and lost in last year's final.

As for recruiting, Redell said he's tired of the accusations because he doesn't recruit.

“There's always been tension between the private and public schools on that subject,” said Redell, entering his 19th year as a high school coach. “Kids don't leave good programs. None leave ours.”

That's not happening anytime soon.

In his seven years at Oaks Christian, Redell has built a juggernaut. Even though his teams haven't competed against the bigger traditional powers in the Southern Section, Redell's offense is second to none.

Lompoc hasn't seen much of Oaks Christian's spread offense, featuring three to four wide receiver sets with the quarterback in shotgun. The ones Braves have faced in the past haven't been as prolific as Oaks Christian's the last three years.

Clausen, a 6-foot-3, 208-pounder, is the key to the offense, which averaged 53.6 points per game last season. He has a quick release and the arm strength to throw deep. He's 27-0 as a starter and has thrown for 7,064 yards and 96 touchdowns in his career.

Most defenses throw a variety of zone packages Clausen's way, rushing as little as three defenders and dropping everyone into pass coverage. That doesn't figure into Luken's plan, putting a lot of pressure on his secondary if his five-man rush doesn't create havoc.

Expect safeties Bobby Collins and Lukas Carpio, and cornerbacks Brandon Alonzo, Chris Mallory and Daniel Carpio to be busy.

“The only thing that I see to our advantage is that their going to play a team that likes to play man-to-man,” said Luken, who runs the 50 defense, featuring five rushers and two inside linebackers. “We got to control the tempo of the game. We are going to hit you in the face, we are going to knock you down. You might end up bleeding after we're done, but you're going to know you've been in a damn fight.

“I told the guys we got to play that game like being in the octagon in that Ultimate Fighting.”

Redell said Oaks Christian is ready for whatever Lompoc brings.

If Lompoc stacks the line of scrimmage, Redell said Clausen will throw. He has a big target in wide receiver Sean Wiser, who's being recruited by Stanford, Oregon and Michigan State.

If Lompoc changes its strategy and goes to a conventional 4-3 defense and plays zone, Redell said Tyler and Jones will carry the load. Tyler rushed for 2,196 yards and 39 touchdowns last season.

Whatever happens tonight, John Downing, an All-CIF Southern Section Div. X lineman last year, said the opportunity will be there for Lompoc to put itself on the national map with an upset.

But most experts are saying Oaks Christian's first test won't come until Sept. 22, when it plays St. Bonaventure of Ventura, last year's top-ranked team in the state by CalHiSports.com.

Luken's looking for his team to change that tonight.

“Oh, who are we? I guess we're going to have to introduce ourselves to them,” said Luken with a laugh. “After the game they are going to know they played us.”

Now there's proof Luken is no longer hesitant about taking on Oaks Christian.

Sept. 1, 2006