It’s that time of year.

The sun is beaming down, the grass is freshly cut and coaches are barking instructions as their players sweat through preseason camp in the August heat.

High school football is under way.

The games are still two weeks away, but kickoff is simply a formality. Teams are in the midst of discovering their identities and who will be in the starting lineup when Friday Night Lights finally arrive.

Every squad starts with a clean slate. No matter the expectation, performance on the field is all that counts.

It’s a blessing of high school sports.

It seems teams annually come out of nowhere to give their fans a pleasant surprise.

Butler County schools can be found in District 10, District 9 and the WPIAL. Each of the districts have produced a representative with a remarkable turnaround in recent years.

Slippery Rock High entered the 2011 season with a 15-game losing skid hanging over the program’s head.

The Rockets wasted no time removing that ugly monkey from their back.

Slippery Rock opened the season with a 23-10 win over Franklin. It served as a launching point for a stellar 7-3 mark during the regular season, along with a District 10 playoff berth.

The Rockets didn’t stop there, though.

Slippery Rock rolled the newfound success into 2012, went 9-1 during the regular season and punched another D-10 postseason ticket.

Slippery Rock’s 15-game losing streak might seem like a rough stretch, but Union’s drought was twice as tough.

The Golden Knights won just seven games from 2003-09 and endured a 30-game skid, but they are perennial doormats no more.

After improvement the previous season, Union totaled seven wins in 2011 alone and reached the District 9 playoffs.

Some might have figured the Golden Knights to be a one-year wonder after a strong senior class graduated, but just like Slippery Rock, Union proved it was no fluke.

The Golden Knights reeled off a 9-1 record during the 2012 regular season and made the D-9 postseason for a second consecutive year.

It was quite a reverse in fortune.

Butler knows a little something about that.

The Golden Tornado snapped a 23-game skid in 2011 during a 2-7 campaign.

It was a small step, but Butler leaped forward in 2012. The Tornado put a 27-game section losing streak to rest last season while making the WPIAL playoffs for the first time since 1998.

Can the Tornado follow up with another successful campaign like Slippery Rock and Union did last season?

Time will tell.

But in August, everyone is undefeated.

Jason Orfao is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.