Of the six varsity football head coaching positions in Chenango County, three were in need of replacement entering this campaign – a 50 percent turnover. Those new faces on the sidelines; however, are certainly no strangers to football.
Mickey James, a longtime assistant coach at Norwich and Oxford has his varsity debut tonight at home against Holland Patent. Tim Mattingly, an eight-year assistant coach under former guru Steve Rice, leads B-G into Harpursville tonight, and Jack Loeffler, a veteran with 30 years of coaching behind him, has the reins at Unadilla Valley-Edmeston. The Storm, back as an independent, host Newark Valley.
“I’m looking at this no differently than any other game,” James said, who has had his focus elsewhere this week with the passing of his mother last Sunday. “If we play hard, we’ll be okay. We’re starting four sophomores on defense and one kid who has never played before.”
Mattingly has served in the B-G football system for 20 years and is part of the Bobcats’ alumni. In contrast to Rice’s calm demeanor on the sidelines, you’ll see a more fiery, animated individual in the first-year mentor. “There will be some butterflies; I’m excited, but nervous,” he said. “You want things to go well. We did some nice things in the scrimmage and we saw some things we wanted to improve on. We feel we have made some of those improvements in practice.”
Of the three new coaches, Loeffler does indeed have head varsity coaching experience, although that was in nine-man football for South New Berlin in the Tri-Valley League. “The kids are really excited and I have become excited for this game,” Loeffler said. “We had the walk-through today, the emotions have been contagious. “Things didn’t go well last year, but we had some good moments in the scrimmage and the kids are starting to gain confidence.”
Among the other openers this weekend include the traditional Route 12 rivalry in which Oxford hosts Greene at 7 p.m. Saturday, while Norwich travels to Binghamton Alumni Stadium Saturday at 7 p.m. to face Johnson City. Here are capsules of this week’s games:

Holland Patent (0-0) at S-E (0-0), Friday, 7 p.m.
James said Patent returns 14 seniors of its 30 players, and it is a squad expected to contend for the Section III Class B East title. “They like to do a lot of different thins with their offense,” James said. “We just need to stay on our blocks on offense, and defensively trust our keys.”

Norwich (0-0) vs. Johnson City, Saturday, 7 p.m. at Binghamton Alumni Stadium
Johnson City is blessed with youth, athleticism, and size in its offensive backfield as it starts a freshman and a sophomore at tailback and fullback. “We know they have some big, athletic, physical kids,” said Norwich coach John Pluta. “Other than that, we don’t know much about them.”
Pluta says his offensive game plan is not set in stone, yet expect Norwich to exert its will with a punishing ground game. “We’ll have to figure out stuff on the run,” he said. “Right now I do like our team cohesiveness and work ethic.”

B-G (0-0) at Harpursville (0-0), Saturday, 1:30 p.m.
Bainbridge-Guilford possesses two large McGinnis’ in its offensive backfield, a huge switch from last year when the two were offensive linemen. Their presence will perhaps be the most noticeable change for the Bobcats over last year’s club. “We certainly hope those changes will pay off,” Mattingly said. “Where we’ve seen growth is in our offensive line; we like what we see.”
Harpursville finished 4-4 during the regular season playing as an independent, and moves back into Class C division play this year. The Hornets lost a lot of offensive and defensive talent, but will be a difficult team to prepare for. “They have some speed, and head coach Mike Curtis likes to run some wide-open stuff and throw the ball,” Mattingly said. “We’re concerned about their speed to the outside.”

Newark Valley (0-0) at UV-Edmeston (0-0), Friday, 7 p.m.
Loeffler admits to flying blind into UV-E’s opener. Other than some sparse knowledge from previous years and a non-league matchup from several years ago, the Storm staff have little knowledge of the Cardinals. “It’s the great unknown,” Loeffler said. “We discussed some things with their coach, and we’re going in with a game idea. We’ll certainly switch it up if we need to, but we want to take it right at them and establish the ground game. Right now, we’re talking about the importance of first down: Closing them down on defense, and not put ourselves in second-and-long situations.”

Greene (0-0) at Oxford (0-0), Saturday, 7 p.m.
Throw records and history out the window with this matchup, and predicting results of this yearly battle has been about as easy as forecasting winning lottery numbers. The Blackhawks, a Class D finalist last year, escaped with a one-TD win, and staved off Greene’s last ditch drive in the final moments.
“I know they lost some guys, but I think they’ll be pretty excited to avenge the loss last year,” said Oxford coach John Curtis. “It’s always been a war.”
Both clubs lost key offensive leaders with the Trojans’ Kurt Spear, Zach Whittaker, and Dan Say graduated, while the Blackhawks’ top offensive weapons, Steve Loomis and Luke Lewis, have also moved on to college. Curtis said in a phone interview Thursday that he suffered an allergic reaction to his medication earlier in the week that will keep him off the sidelines. Curtis said Jim Champlin, head junior varsity coach, will likely take over the head coaching reins for one game.