MISQUAH — The Pike football season opens Friday night at Pine City with twenty-nine players still on the roster, four returning starters on the offensive line and one sophomore center who has now been asked enough questions about the Zipper.

Coach Ryan Mattox has closed that portion of camp.

“We have moved on,” he said.

The team’s fair-week scrimmage did what an August scrimmage is supposed to do: exposed protection problems, confirmed a couple positions, produced film that coaches have since watched too many times and injured nobody. That last item matters most.

The offense will start behind a line Mattox considers the deepest part of the team. Jon Sandbo, the sophomore center, remains in the middle after playing the entire live portion of the scrimmage. The backfield is younger. The defense returns experience at linebacker and less of it in the secondary, where two juniors are expected to make their first varsity starts Friday.

Sandbo said Monday that the line’s main work this week is communication rather than contact.

“You can fix a bad step if everybody knows whose bad step it was,” he said. “If two guys think the other guy has somebody, then the film gets educational.”

The Pike practiced Monday morning and moved to the after-school schedule Wednesday. Today’s work is shorter. Thursday is a walk-through. The bus leaves Friday at 4:15 for a 7 p.m. kickoff.

Denny Dahl, activities director, said the team will dress all twenty-nine players but that two younger players are unlikely to see varsity snaps unless the game gets out of hand in either direction.

Pine City returns a veteran quarterback and most of its defensive front. Mattox declined to turn that into a prediction.

“They are a football team,” he said. “We are also a football team. Friday is when that becomes useful information.”

The Pike’s first home game is next week. The bleachers, unlike the fair scrimmage, are expected to contain people who chose football over something else.

Sonny has confirmed there is no Zipper in Pine City’s game plan.