After almost three weeks of practice and inflicting pain on teammates, Oskaloosa will finally be able to put some of those painful hits on another team.

The Indians, who went 3-6 and sixth in District 6 a year ago, kicks off the new season Friday night in a 7:30 p.m. contest at Grinnell against the Tigers. Grinnell went 6-3 and finished fourth in District 4 and both teams have moved on to different districts.

Oskaloosa will be competing in District 5 while Grinnell is taking the Indians’ place in District 6.

They opened the 2007 season at Grinnell with the Tigers winning 17-7.

The Tigers ran for 249 yards in the win, but do not return any of their top rushes from the game.

They do have a pair of preseason all-state players in senior offensive center Tyler Lloyd and senior running back/kicker Ryan Mertens, who had nine tackles in last year’s meeting.

Whichever team comes out on top on Friday night, it will take over the lead in the series as both teams have won 48 times while tying four games.

Oskaloosa coach Darrell Schumacher, who is entering his sixth year as head coach, expects the Indians are anxious and ready to bang some heads other than with their teammates.

“We’ll be ready to go,” he said. “They will be excited about playing somebody else besides themselves and that’s great. We’ve had some good practices lately and a good scrimmage last Friday (Old Shoe Game). We’re getting more and more physical and that’s got to help. They will be ready mentally to go.”

Schumacher added that the Indians are going to focus on stopping the run after allowing 232 yards per game last season.

He said they may do some different things than what they’ve done in the past and defense will be a key for them to succeed.

“They kind of set up their run and beat us on a pass that went for a touchdown,” Schumacher said. “There for a while, we gave them 5, 6 yards a crack and you can’t do that in a high school football game for very long. You have to stop the run and that’s our goal.”

The Indians have three preseason all-staters of their own in senior defensive back Andrew Reed, senior running back Tye Sparks and senior offensive lineman Alex Sirovy.

Sparks paced the team in rushing with 955 yards and 11 touchdowns. He rushed for 71 yards and a score in the scrimmage last week.

Oskaloosa’s starting quarterback is slated to be junior Jon Eveland, who completed a blistering 78 percent of his passes. Of course, he only threw nine passes for 75 yards and a touchdown. Eveland was 4 of 15 for 45 yards in the Old Shoe Game.