Other than the handful of Minnesota high school football teams playing Zero Week games this week, virtually every team around the state will participate in a scrimmage Saturday.
Jackson County Central will head to Mapleton, where the Huskies will scrimmage with Lake Crystal Wellcome Memorial and Fairmont.
JCC will host LCWM in its homecoming game on Oct. 8 and the Knights are Section 3AA along with the Huskies. Jackson County Central will not see the Cardinals again as they're not on the regular-season schedule and JCC has moved to Class 2A for postseason play, while Fairmont remains in Class 3A.
In last year's shortened season, teams did not have scrimmages before the first game. JCC coach Tom Schuller likes this much better.
"Last season, we didn't have a chance to have a scrimmage and it was horrifying to find out what we didn't know," said Schuller during a segment you can hear on the Sports Roundup that starts at 9 a.m. Saturday on 1370 AM and 97.1 FM KSUM.
"At least we'll have a chance to what we don't know and fix it. We're excited to hit somebody else. We're going to about 40 plays against Lake Crystal and 40 plays against Fairmont and that will be about right for us.
"It's kind of like the NFL in their third preseason game. We want to see as much of the top backups as we can. The guys who are starters we kind of know where they're at. We don't know what some of the other guys can do."
Schuller is in his 23rd season as head coach of the Huskies.
Jackson County Central opens the regular season at Swearingen Field Thursday vs. Maple River.