The Statesboro Blue Devil football team started the season strong with a 21-10 win over Southeast Bulloch and could have easily been 2-0 if not for allowing a game-winning touchdown with less than 40 seconds left in the game the previous week against Veterans.

Coming off a bye week, the Blue Devils open region play at home Friday night against Greenbrier. Head coach Matt Dobson feels like the bye week has been beneficial to the Blue Devils and he likes the mind set of the team going into their region opener.

“We learned from the loss that you have to play mistake-free football and you can’t beat yourself,” Dobson said. “I felt like last week during our bye week our kids really responded. We cleaned up some things and I am excited about the opportunity to start region play.”

Last season the Blue Devils started the season 1-3 which included a 43-14 loss to Greenbrier in week three. Dobson has stressed to his team the importance of starting the season strong to build momentum in order to make a state playoff run.

“The win over Southeast was great from the rivalry aspect and then we nearly won a game in which we played pretty sloppy,” Dobson said. “We have tried to break our season into two halves. We have three more games before our next bye week and then we finish with five-straight. We have stressed that all these games from here on out really matter. This is what determines whether we keep playing in November or not. We are prepared for a tough region schedule and our kids are excited.”

Last year’s lopsided loss to Greenbrier was due in large part to five Statesboro turnovers, all of which led to Wolfpack points. Dobson knows the importance of playing a clean game Friday and trying to slow down the Greenbrier running game.

 “They are similar to last year in that they are going to run the football and play physical defense,” Dobson said. “Having a bye week last week I have watched last year’s game more times than I would have liked to. We told our guys the most important thing Friday is to win the turnover battle. We had five turnovers last year and you aren’t going to win any game doing that. They ran the ball well last year and we also feel we have to win the rushing battle. We are really challenging our offensive and defensive lines to step it up and win the battle in the trenches Friday.”

Statesboro and Greenbrier are set for a 7:30 start Friday at Womack Field.