After a pair of pre-season scrimmages, Purcell will start keeping score for the 2025 gridiron campaign on the road Friday night at Lindsay.

Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. at Burford Field.

The Leopards are coming off a 13-6 Week 0 victory over Pauls Valley.

Purcell Head Coach Aaron Dillard said it’s to Lindsay’s advantage having a game under their belt with Purcell coming off a pair of scrimmages.

Lindsay will operate out of a spread offense and have a prolific running back in Dutton Taylor, who rushed for over 100 yards against the Panthers last week.

“They’ve got a good team with a lot of returning starters back on both sides of the ball,” Dillard said of the Leopards.

“They are big, fast and athletic and are the best Lindsay team since I’ve been here. It’ll be a challenge for sure,” Dillard said.

“Sutton is a play maker,” the coach confirmed. “And, they have a couple of good receivers we will have to defend well against.”

The Leopards, who operate out of the spread on offense, run the football 66 percent of the time.

“They are better at running the ball than they are passing,” Dillard said. “They are at their best when they are running downhill at you. But, if we can get them into second and third and long we will have a chance to get (the defense) off the field.

“The key for us is to not beat ourselves. We drove the ball all over the field last year but we didn’t finish a lot of drives. We’ve got to play a much cleaner game than last year. We’ve got to show up and execute and not put the ball on the ground.

“Another key is getting their big running back on the ground,” Dillard said. “He also plays inside linebacker on defense so hopefully we can wear him down.”

The Dragons are coming off a scrimmage at Harrah. Mount St. Mary was also there where former Sooner J.D. Runnels is the head coach and has 60 players on the roster.

“Harrah is a solid team and Mount St. Mary has a lot of good athletes. We were tested on both offense and defense,” the coach said.

“We had a couple of miscues than resulted in us turning the ball over,” Dillard said. “But we did have one good drive against Harrah on offense where we drove the ball 70 yards on seven plays and scored a touchdown.”

On defense, the coach said his club gave up one big play but for the most part were a bend but don’t break defense.

With the exception of one injury sustained in the scrimmage, the Dragons are healthy heading into the season opener.