For all you diehard fans who bleed Tiger Red, it‘s finally arrived. After a long, seemingly unending summer, football season is here.

This Friday night, the Luverne Tigers host the Opp Bobcats to get the 2006 campaign kicked off.

According to head coach Brad Waggoner, who will begin his second season at the helm of the Tigers, the team has high hopes for a great season despite some questions that won't be answered till kickoff.

Waggoner said LHS has a great nucleus led by eight returning seniors.

He said the coaching staff is counting on the seniors to step up and provide leadership for the younger players. One of those young players who will immediately climb into the hot seat is sophomore quarterback Chad Free, who has big shoes to fill in taking over for Ryan Brown, who graduated last year.

Waggoner is not concerned about him though, because, according to Waggoner, &#8220Chad is a great kid and he has prepared the right way.”

&#8220He has gotten ready mentally as well as physically, and has stepped up to take a leadership role for the team.”

&#8220We will definitely need that from Chad as well as all eight seniors since we play probably our toughest schedule in several years,” said Waggoner.

&#8220Opp, being a 4A school, playing LHS, A 2A school, will mean that depth and conditioning will play a major role in the outcome,” Waggoner added. &#8220In order to win, we must play mistake-free football and eliminate penalties and turnovers, and hopefully, make more big plays than Opp.”

Game time is 7 p.m. Friday night in Glen Daniels Stadium.