The non-conference slates for Parkers Chapel and Bearden were ones they hope they don’t have to endure through again anytime soon.
The Trojans and Bears both went winless during that portion of their respective schedules, but despite their struggles so far this season, nothing has changed their playoff aspirations.
On Friday night, the Trojans and Bears square off in the 8-2A opener for both squads looking to start conference play on the right foot and also begin what they hope will be a solid finish to the regular season.
Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. from Bearden.
“They’ve struggled a little bit like we have,” said Parkers Chapel coach Elliot Jacobs. “They do have a lot of athletes, guys that you make you nervous with the ball in their hands, so we’ve got to do a good job of knowing where those guys are at and making sure we’re matching up our best people against their best people.”
Bearden (0-5) enters off of a 40-20 loss to 7-2A foe Lafayette County, while the Trojans (0-3) were off last week after falling at home to Murfreesboro 27-6 two weeks ago.
The Trojans will have to keep an eye on junior Royce Cones, who caught three passes for 108 yards and two scores against the Cougars.
“They’re a spread team. They’ll give you a bunch of formations,” Jacobs said. “They’ve got a couple of guys that they’ll move around to try and get the ball to. They don’t try to hide it, so its are our athletes better than their athletes? We’ll find out Friday.”
On defense, Jacobs said the Bears stand out for their pursuit of the football.
“They load a bunch of people in the box and play man coverage behind it,” Jacobs said. “They just try to get after you. They don’t do anything special but 11 guys flying to the football every play. They do a real good job defensively, so we have to be sound offensively and capitalize when we get an opportunity to.”
With the Bears playing man coverage, could it lead to opportunities for the Trojans to strike through the air?
“It should, but right now we’re struggling in that area on offense,” Jacobs said. “Our passing game hasn’t been what we’ve needed it to be, but for us to have success, we’re going to have to find it on Friday. They’re playing man coverage, and we’ve got to do a good job of disguising routes and making sure we find the open guy.”
Success has been difficult to come by for both schools. The Trojans haven’t won since topping Strong on Oct. 30 of last year. The Bears’ last win also came against Strong on Oct. 23 of last year.
The series has had some dramatic moments with the Trojans winning 21-14 in overtime back in 2015, while the Bears won a defensive slugfest 8-6 in 2017 before winning at home 28-23 a year later.
The Bears won last year’s meeting 36-0 at Victor Nipper Stadium.
“Definitely the biggest game for us so far,” Jacobs said. “Everything we’ve done up until now hasn’t affect any seeding, so our kids have got to know that now the season starts, and we’ve got to play a little harder than we have played in the past and find a way to scratch out a win.”
Jacobs said the Trojans focused on fundamentals during their bye week.
“Just ourselves, what we can fundamentally do to be better. That’s the kind of stuff we worked on in practice all week,” he said.
Jacobs added that the time off allowed some players to get healthy for the stretch run.
“It allowed a couple of our guys to get healthy,” Jacobs said. “We do like that, but at the same time, you also like playing games and you don’t want to miss an opportunity.
“We didn’t have an opportunity to get better this week on what we could’ve worked on had we played a game. Having a week off is good and bad.”
If the Trojans are to pick up their first win of the season, Jacobs said there were several keys for his team.
“Offensively, execute and take care of the football,” Jacobs said. “Defensively, keep everything in front. A lot of their big plays happen on broken plays, so we have to do a good job and make sure we know where people are and play assignment football.”