Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – The Arcata Tigers will play their home opener on Friday night.

By Ray Hamill — After playing two recent state champions the past two weekends and having little or no time to prepare for either of them, it’s fair to say what we’ve seen from the Arcata Tigers so far this season is not reflective of what we expect to come.

“Like I’ve said, I wouldn’t count us out just yet,” head coach Jamal Jones said.

The Tigers (0-2) will play the Balboa Buccaneers in their home opener on Friday night at McKinleyville High, with kickoff set for 7 p.m.

And while it has been a difficult start to the campaign with blowout losses on the road at St. Bernard’s (47-12) and at Sutter (57-14), the head coach feels his team will benefit from tough matchups early in the season.

“We haven’t played our best ball yet,” Jones said. “Everything we want is still in front of us. As the weeks come, you’ll see us continue to get better and better.”

The air quality around the state forced the Tigers to change their schedule at the last minute on each of the opening two weekends, and as Jones noted, the team has had to game plan for four different teams in two weeks, which has not helped their preparation.

Nor has the fact the team was playing a lot of players out of position early in the campaign and dealing with what Jones described as “internal stuff.”

“We’ve got past that now,” said the head coach, who has all his players available for the game and had a full week to prepare for this Friday’s opponent.

“It’s the first time we’re going into a game with an actual game plan,” he said. “It’s the first time we’ve had a week to prepare for a team. And I don’t care what sort of a football team you are, that makes a huge difference.

“We’ll be ready to go. I expect the result to be different. I expect us to play hard.”