The days will get shorter. The breeze will get crisper. The sleeves will get longer.

The sun-kissed, chlorine-infused summer trance will soon be replaced by the bright lights of Friday night.

Zealous crowds. Painted faces.

Bruising tackles. Sideline races.

Football season. It’s back.

And as temperatures start dropping and tank tops and shorts get swapped for jackets and jeans, a familiar fervor descends upon the Gate City.

The Highland Rams, the Century Diamondbacks and the Pocatello Indians. All schools a stone’s throw from each other. All with different legacies. All with the same goal. They want to win. As the years pass, the evidence that supports Pocatello as a football town becomes greater. Between storied coaches, state playoff runs, championship trophies and players who continue to move on to the college ranks, the Gate City has established itself as an underappreciated football factory, a small but brilliant gem among gaudier diamonds of the gridiron.

The football stranglehold isn’t limited to just Pocatello. In the last 35 years, 105 state championship trophies have been awarded at the 5A, 4A and 3A levels. East Idaho schools took home 56 of them. Highland owns 10 — tied with Snake River for the most in Idaho. Pocatello has five — four in 5A and another in 4A. Century has three — all won within five years of the school’s opening in 1999.

Where does this all come from? Why is southeast Idaho a high school football mecca? How does some of the best football in the Gem State consistently come out of this tiny corner?

With another high school football season upon us, don’t expect those questions to fade anytime soon.

***

Winning breeds tradition.

Few coaches in Idaho know this better than Highland’s Gino Mariani.

The coach on the hill has won a trifecta of titles with the red and black. He doesn’t just expect to field one of the best teams in the state. He knows he’s going to field one of the best teams in the state, and that’s a confidence that comes only after being at or near the top for so long. It’s an attitude that pays off in spades and lifts student-athletes to some of the top Division I colleges in the nation to continue their football aspirations.

Taysom Hill to BYU. Tristen Hoge to Notre Dame. Kyler Manu to Washington. Wayne Kirby to Oregon. All played under Mariani, and all helped the Rams reach 5A’s highest peak. They — like those who came before and after them — knew if you played for the Rams, you were going to play for championships. That’s forever the custom at Highland High School.

“We have a rich tradition here,” Mariani said. “And there’s a certain expectation every time you walk onto the field and every season that you come into.”

2016 will be Mariani’s 16th year as head coach of the Rams, and he’s helped keep his program at the forefront of the conversation about Idaho’s elite. But inside the storied halls of Highland High School and across the town of Pocatello, there’s one name etched further into the walls than anyone else’s.

***

Talk to anybody about Pocatello as a football town and the Koetter name will invariably come up.

The Koetters are responsible for nine of the Gate City’s state championships — five at Highland and four at Poky. Jim Koetter — father to Dirk and Brent — began Highland’s football dynasty in the 1960s before Dirk led the Rams to a title in 1984. Jim took state at Poky in 1989, 1990 and 1992 before Brent brought the Indians another championship in 1994. Brent took over as head coach of Highland a year later, leading the Rams to state crowns in 1995, 1997, 1998 and 2000.

Brent is now a financial advisor in Boise, while Dirk’s coaching journey through the college and professional ranks has led him to become the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Jim resides in Pocatello, where the legacy he helped build flourishes to this day.

“We had players that wanted to be successful and were willing to put in the work to be successful,” Jim said. “It certainly started with some natural ability, and I think that’s carried over. … It’s stayed strong over the years because of the ability of the players to continue to work hard and continue to want to achieve success.”

***

That drive to achieve carried Highland and Pocatello through decades of triumph and spilled over to a generation that was willing to take the baton when the time came.

“I feel very fortunate and very blessed that I was able to play with coach Jim Koetter and coach Brent Koetter,” said Pocatello High School head football coach Dave Spillett. “That’s one of the biggest reasons I wanted to get into (coaching). Those guys, they’ve done wonders for the game of football, and they’ve done wonders for a lot of young men in this state.”

Spillett, who graduated from Poky in 1995 and was a part of two state championship teams, was Century’s offensive coordinator when the Diamondbacks won championships in 2001 and 2003. He took over as head coach in 2010 and was a two-point conversion away from a state championship appearance in 2013.

In 2015, Spillett returned home to Pocatello High School — where his roots run deep — to continue the tradition of Poky Pride. While his 14 years spent as a Diamondback were certainly special, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to switch the Century purple for the Pocatello blue.

“That was one of the really cool things about coming back here,” Spillett said. “A lot of my family played here. My grandpa played here at Poky (in) 1946-47. His picture is up on the wall. … There is a very rich history of football and family and togetherness.”

***

Though Spillett’s energy is now spent inside the illustrious halls of Pocatello High School, he helped craft a winning attitude at Century, where second-year head coach Travis Hobson is hoping to take things further.

“It’s unique to have a school that’s under 20 years of existence have some sort of a championship tradition,” he said. “That’s a nice thing to inherit. Three state titles in the school’s history when they’ve been around for less than two decades — that’s pretty cool.”

Hobson is accustomed to winning on some of the biggest stages. He joined Shelley High School’s coaching staff in 2004 and was a part of the football program’s three state titles as an assistant in 2005, 2007 and 2009 before becoming head coach in 2012, when he won the first of back-to-back 3A state championships. Then in his first year at Century, the Diamondbacks advanced to the 4A semifinals.

A Borah High School grad, Hobson has an idea of what the football landscape is like statewide, and he sees no reason to leave southeast Idaho.

“I think this entire area has really good football,” Hobson said. “Smart football coaches, a lot of hardworking football players. I think the tradition of having the blue-collar, farm-kid type of mentality still applies. … When you get deep into the playoffs, you’re always going to find schools from southeast Idaho in the mix.”

***

Highland, Pocatello and Century all have their merits. They win. They send players to the next level. They have coaches who want their players to succeed.

So how does a future high school football player choose between the three? Which coach does a kid want to play for? Does he want the sustained success of a place like Highland, the esteemed history of a place like Pocatello, or the chance to hang with the relatively new kids at Century?

Because the city of Pocatello’s open enrollment policy allows prospective high school students to choose between the Gate City’s three schools regardless of where they live, these are questions asked by everyone. And because of the IHSAA’s strict guidelines on undue influence — or the illegal recruitment of players by anyone directly or indirectly connected with a school — Mariani, Spillett and Hobson have to let the weight of their respective programs speak for themselves.

“You just kind of sell your program on its merits and its tradition and what we’re about and let the kids make their choices from there,” Mariani said. “You’re not going to get every good athlete. I just want kids to play football. Whether it’s here, whether it’s at Century, whether it’s at Poky. I don’t care. … All of us are kind of unique and we have different styles that we do and different philosophies. I just try to make sure that we’re very positive in our message, and I’m sure both of the other schools are the same way.”

***

There’s been a boom across the middle school ranks the last handful of years, and those players are beginning to filter through the Gate City’s three high schools. While Highland, Pocatello and Century believe they can field solid, competitive, playoff-caliber teams today, they are all anxious to see the talent of tomorrow.

“It’s a great group,” Mariani said. “We have some of the biggest linemen I’ve seen in years.”

“There are some kids who are going to make some real noise over the next three to four years,” Spillett said.

“This year’s sophomore class and this year’s freshman class — all three schools I think are going to see an influx of talent,” Hobson said.

With the steady stream of hard work and skill coming out of Pocatello, Mariani, Spillett and Hobson are almost always excited about their underclassmen. The same sentiment can be shared by Idaho State head football coach Mike Kramer, who is entering his sixth year with the Bengals. He has constantly had first dibs on a healthy, steady crop of football players growing in his own backyard.

“We recruit in concentric circles from Holt Arena,” Kramer said. “If we find a guy that can play and give him the opportunity to play, they pretty much always reward us with great effort. … Pocatello, Aberdeen, American Falls, Rockland, Arco — we’ve got guys from all those communities who make us feel good about running a Division I football program.”

***

What’s the deal with southeast Idaho football players? Just why have they always been so darn good?

Is it the undying influence of the Koetter family all those years ago? Are they trying to live up to those who spilled their sweat decades ago? Is it a blue-collar mentality that stems from the various farming communities?

The answers to those inquiries are vast and debatable. But one thing’s for certain: It makes things a heck of a lot of fun. Football in these parts has been played with passion and potency for years and years and years, and the sport’s incorruptible foundation in southeast Idaho is too vast for that to ever change.