This Friday kicks off the Texas high school football season and all five Montague County teams are buckling down to try and come away 1-0 after the first week.

Bowie
The Bowie Jackrabbits travel to Graham this week to play the 4A Steers at 7:30 p.m.
It will be a good test for the mostly new look Bowie team as Graham is in a similar boat just having graduated a big senior class as well.
Coach Hugh Farmer mentioned sophomore quarterback Ty Thompson being the key to the Steers’ offense after playing a lot as a freshman last season.
He estimates the team leans a bit more on the run but are balanced on offense and has some receivers that have made plays on film.
On defense, Farmer said the Steers play a similar 3-3 stack defense as the Jackrabbits do which will give them some familiarity for the formation.
“It’s going to be a really good test for us against a good team with a lot of tradition,” Farmer said. “Those kids are going to walk out on the field and think they can win and we are going to have to match that.”

Nocona
The Nocona Indians open their season at home against Era at 7:30 p.m.
The 2A Hornets went 2-9 last year but return more than half their players on both sides of the ball and will be looking to improve with the continuity.
Nocona Coach Blake Crutsinger said Era will look to stay balanced out of the spread offensive formation and the defense will have to be ready for anything.
On offense, Crutsinger said he feels his team can move the ball if they continue to sharpen things up while also hinting they left some things out of the scrimmage the Hornets may not be ready for.

Saint Jo
The Saint Jo Panthers are scheduled to open their season at 7:30 p.m. at home against Wichita Christian.
The Stars are a private school that Stevens says likes to spread teams out and throw the football. Stevens feels like this year’s defense is one of the more athletic he has had and feels confident they will be equipped to handle it.
Offensively with the playmakers the Panthers have on offense, Stevens feels like his team should be able to run the ball well if they are to be successful in this game, though the team will try to diversify up the offensive formations this year.
“We have to get better at blocking than we did in our scrimmages,” Stevens said. “Blocking in a practice setting is a whole different thing. The other key will be can we tackle in space?”

Gold-Burg
The Gold-Burg Bears open their season on the road at 7:30 p.m. at Perrin-Whitt.
The Bears are familiar with the Pirates as the team have opened the season against the other several years in a row at this point.
That familiarity is even more so with new Coach Brady Hibbitt having spent the past two seasons as an assistant at Perrin-Whitt.
“Those kids we watched on film, we have to go into the game not expecting we are just going to beat them,” Hibbitts said. “They are a really good team and well coached. We are going to have to play one of our better games to beat them.”
Hibbitts noted Cassey Beach as a player to watch as a quick footed athlete on both sides of the ball and Dylan Trammell at a big kid who usually blocks but sometime carries the ball as well.

Forestburg
The Forestburg Longhorns are opening their season at home at 7 p.m. against the North Texas Spartan.
The Spartans out of Mckninney are a home school team that will be playing their first game ever. With no film from even a scrimmage to go off of, the Longhorns are going into the game blind.
The good news is the team will be getting three new players to expand to 12 players in time for the game, which will give Forestburg some much needed depth it has been missing for several years if they can get those players up to speed.
So in preparation, the Longhorns will be focusing on polishing up their fundamentals in practice to be as sharp as they can be.
Playing the best version of their type of football will hopefully lead to success against a team that will probably have less experience than they do.