Pleasant Home will stick to what its been doing this week as the Eagles travel to face Zion Chapel in their season-opener Friday night, head coach Ronnie Douglas said.

The Eagles enter their first week of the regular season coming off a 19-0 varsity loss to Red Level last week in a jamboree game.

PHS ran 40 plays on offense last week against the Tigers, Douglas said.

“That was a bunch of plays,” he said. “We didn’t have anybody cramping up, so from that perspective, we’re in decent shape.”

Zion Chapel is known for its strong front on the offensive and defensive lines, and the Rebels’ film shows that, Douglas said.

“They are real fundamentally sound as far as staying low on the offensive and defensive lines,” he said. “Their quarterback is pretty good. Their tail back, who is a sophomore, is pretty good. They’ve got a tight end and a full back that are good.

“All around, they’ve got a pretty solid football team,” he said.

Last week, new senior quarterback Gabe Gunter, who has committed to play baseball at Virginia Tech, showed the crowd at Bobby Dye Stadium in Red Level his throwing arm.

Even though he only completed six of his passes, Douglas said the Eagles will throw the ball this week against the Rebels.

“We’re going to throw it up, and see if we can catch it,” Douglas said. “We threw it up, but we didn’t catch it the other night. Like I told my kids, ‘we’re going to make it rain.’ Hopefully we can catch a bunch of them this week.”

Throughout the almost two months Douglas has been at PHS, he’s emphasized that he wants a more “up-tempo” team.

That’s been one of the main focuses at practice this week, he said.

“Our practice is pretty fast tempo,” he said. “That’s going to be the main concern, keeping the fast tempo so maybe we can go four quarters.”

Kick off in Jack is at 7 p.m.