The Pleasant Home Eagles will be giving other skill players opportunities to get in some rep time this week as they open their regular season hosting Samson on Friday night.

The Eagles are coming off a 20-13 loss to Red Level last Thursday in a jamboree game held in Red Level.

Pleasant Home coach Robert Bradford said it was good to assess what the team has learned from watching films of the jamboree game.

“We got a chance to watch ourselves on film and evaluate the things we did and the things we did poorly,” Bradford said. “The old cliché in football is that you improve more from your first game to your second game than any other game in the year — we’re really hoping to see some improvements this week.

“I’m hoping to maybe see us do a little better and improve on some of the things we didn’t do so well on,” he said. “It’s been a week of improvement is how you would sum it up for us. That’s what we’re looking for.”

Bradford said senior quarterback Ethan King, who was injured and did not play in the jamboree, will return to the field Friday, although he may not be 100 percent.

“You never can really tell,” he said. “I hope Ethan is going to play and Cory Sims saw some time at quarterback last week and he’ll get some more snaps this week.

“I think for us to be a successful football team, we’re definitely going to have to spread the ball around and (Frank Senn) got so many carries last week,” he said. “That’s one thing I hope to do this week is spread the ball around. We had the desire last week to do it, but we just didn’t have the ability to get it done.”

Throughout the game last week, the Eagles stayed close with Red Level, remaining within one point of the lead several times during the game.

“I think whenever we play our standard of football we’ll always be in the game and last week we were kind of one-dimensional,” Bradford said. “I think we did a pretty good job of running the ball the first three quarters. By the fourth quarter, they realized that we didn’t have a successful down-the-field passing game.”

If the Eagles get a win on Friday night, Bradford said it would help their season tremendously.

“Winning is always good for morale,” Bradford said. “But what I’ve been telling the kids all the time is that if we’re going to make a push this year like I think we’re able to and maybe get in the post season, then the region games are what really make or breaks us. We’re going to go in the game and try to win the game and do everything we can to try to pull out a victory.”