Mountain Home Tigers' football season starts Friday

The Mountain Home Tigers open their 2012 football season Friday night at home against the Jerome Tigers.

It will be the Tigers' first game under new head coach Aaron Rodney.

Mountain Home competed at a jamboree Friday night at Columbia High School in Nampa, going against Burley and Fruitland. The jamboree format had each team going 15 minutes on offense.

Burley scored a touchdown in its closing minutes of scrimmage to give them two touchdowns. The Tigers had scored one against the Bobcats when they had the ball. Mountain Home and Fruitland both scored four touchdowns.

The Tigers head coach saw some good positive things from the jamboree.

"We started a little slow, I think, a little sluggish, but once we got going we started picking it up and doing a pretty good job," Rodney said following the contest.

"We played two pretty good ball teams. I think Fruitland's one of the most well-coached teams at any level and probably one of the better teams in the state, and we went toe-to-toe with them," the coach added. "I think that gives us a lot of confidence going against Jerome."

However, there are many things the team needs to clean up, he said.

"We had some blown coverages on defense," Rodney said. "Offensively, we didn't execute very well in many situations, so we've got to clean it up and execute better."

While he admits the team is closer now than it was in the beginning, "we still have miles and miles to go, but all things considered, I think it was a pretty good scrimmage," he said.

"I think it could have gone a little better, but that's just me being hard on us," he added. "I'm pleased at where we're at right now and I like our chances, I think we're much more well prepared to go into that Jerome game than we were a few days ago," he said.

"We didn't have everybody tonight. Jake Ryan, our starting tailback, was not playing tonight. He has a bruise on his shin that is healing, so we elected not to play him tonight. We had a couple linemen that we kept out a little bit, so we weren't at full strength tonight, but a lot of guys did get a some good experience, and for a lot of these kids, this is their first varsity experience.

"We're a young team -- a junior-dominated team -- and I think this experience that they received tonight will be a valuable move forward."

The Tigers open their season Friday night at Tiger Field against Jerome. Kickoff is at 7 p.m.