Tim Martinez: 10 good things to notice about the 2015 prep football schedule

The kickoff of the 2015 high school football season is still almost two months away. But what else do we have to do in July but look forward to gridiron action?

Last week, The Columbian posted the high school football schedules for Southwest Washington teams in the 4A, 3A and 2A Greater St. Helens League, as well as the 1A Trico League.

Individual school links have been set up to get the 2015 high school football schedules. CLICK HERE and then just click on a school name to see that team’s schedule.

So, we’ve picked out 10 things to notice about the 2015 prep football schedule:

1) The season kicks off on a Thursday night. R.A. Long and Mark Morris share Longview Memorial Stadium as a home stadium. Normally, the two schools manage to make sure only one team is home each week. But that is not the case in Week 1 of the 2015 season. R.A. Long will host Columbia River on Thursday, Sept. 3 to kick off the prep season. Mark Morris hosts Kelso on Friday, Sept. 4. It happens again in Week 6 when Mark Morris hosts Woodland on Thursday, Oct. 8, while R.A. Long hosts Prairie on Friday, Oct. 9.

2) Teams’ 2015 schedules look a lot like their 2014 schedules. That’s because teams like to make out schedules for both years of the current two-year classification cycles. So basically, most teams play the same nine teams they played last season, except the location of the games have been flip-flopped. Starting in 2016-17, the WIAA will go to a four-year classification cycle.

3) Earlier starts at McKenzie Stadium. McKenzie Stadium remains the happening place on Friday nights this fall, with doubleheaders in eight of the nine weeks of the season (Union hosts Federal Way in Week 1 in the only week with a single game). But apparently officials grew tired of 8 p.m. games starting closer to 8:30 p.m. and not ending until after 11 p.m. So doubleheader games will start at 4:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Those of us with tight deadlines on Friday nights like this, although fans trying to get off work early enough to make a 4:30 p.m. kickoff may not.

4) Friday night flies into Saturday. Six of the nine weeks include at least one Saturday game involving a Clark County team, including the first four weeks of the season. In Week 1, Mountain View opens the season against Auburn at Husky Stadium in Seattle on Saturday. In Week 6, three Evergreen Public Schools teams host games at McKenzie Stadium — Heritage-Union and Skyview-Mountain View on Friday, with Yelm-Evergreen on Saturday.

5) New turf in Woodland. The new Woodland High School with its new football stadium complete with a turf field will open its doors this fall. The first game for the Beavers at their new home will come in Week 2 (Sept. 11) against La Center. One less grass field in the area. It leaves Columbia River, La Center and Hockinson as Clark County teams who play home games on grass fields.

6) More Thursday games. Speaking of turf fields, Prairie has a turf field and lights on its on-campus field, but no grandstand or bleachers. So the Falcon football team shares a home stadium with Battle Ground — Battle Ground’s District Stadium. And that means conflicts sometimes, and conflicts mean Thursday games. There are two such conflicts, meaning Battle Ground hosts Heritage on a Thursday (Oct. 1) in Week 5, and Prairie hosts Columbia River on a Thursday (Oct. 22) in Week 8.

7) Road trips. Apart from Mountain View’s trip to Husky Stadium, several other teams plan trips outside of District 4 for road games. Battle Ground plays at Kent-Meridian, Camas at Chiawana in Pasco, Evergreen at Eisenhower in Yakima (Week 1), Skyview at Woodinville, Mountain View at Juanita in Kirkland, Camas at Federal Way (Week 2), Union at Spanaway Lake (Week 4), and my personal favorite, King’s Way Christian at Friday Harbor (Week 8).

8) Week 3 is for league games. The first two weeks of the season are non-league games. But league play starts in Week 3 with Evergreen vs. Heritage, Union vs. Mountain View, Battle Ground vs. Skyview (4A GSHL), Kelso vs. Prairie (3A GSHL), Woodland vs. Hudson’s Bay, Mark Morris vs. R.A. Long, Washougal vs. Ridgefield (2A GSHL).

9) Busy Fridays. Week 3 (Sept. 18) features 11 games in Clark County featuring 4A-1A teams. Week 7 (Oct. 16) features 10 in the county, plus one in Woodland (the new campus is farther from the county line than the old one, but we’ll count it).

10) Union vs. Camas. The big rivalry game is Oct. 16 at Doc Harris Stadium, in case you were wondering.