This Friday will mark the first game for Butler County Magnet School, and head coach Shane Smothers likens the matchup with Marengo to another Friday-night event.

“It’s going to be like going on a blind date,” he said. “We haven’t seen them, and they haven’t seen us.”

The Panthers didn’t play a fall jamboree, and Marengo’s was an 18-minute long scrimmage, so not much word about either team has made the rounds.

“We’ve heard very little about them, and I don’t know what they’ve heard about us, but we won’t know the truth until we get there,” Smothers said. “One thing I do know is that they’ll be bigger than us.”

He also said that practice has been going well for the Panthers and increasing in intensity leading up to the first game.

“We’ve been working them hard and running a lot of plays so that Friday will be easy,” Smothers said.

Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. in Georgiana.