High school football fans should circle Friday, Oct. 12, on their calendars.

On that Friday night, Hand High visits Xavier for a reasonably interesting football game at Palmer Field. For those with short memories, Xavier finished last season ranked No. 1 and Hand was ranked No. 2. Both were undefeated. Xavier was the LL champ and Hand was the L champ.

Having said that, things often change dramatically from year-to-year in high school. Some 20 Xavier seniors will graduate and sources say the Tigers have lost a lot, too. However, these are programs that generally reload and not rebuild. Is it reasonable to expect both to be as good as they were last year? Of course not.

But it’s reasonable to think both will be pretty good. Maybe better than pretty good.

Read more from Jim Bransfield here.