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Local high school football teams will get a break from their district schedules this week.

And they just started Friday night.

All four Blount County teams, along with Greenback and Sequoyah, will play non-district games in Week Three after facing opponents from their newly aligned districts for the first time last week.

For Greenback (1-2) and William Blount (1-2), two teams looking to rebound from losses, this week offers a chance to regroup in preparation for pivotal stretch runs.

The Governors' final six regular-season games are against district opponents. The same goes for four of the Cherokees' last six games.

"I like the way they mix (the schedule) up," said first-year Greenback coach Justin Ridge, whose team will play host to Class AA Sweetwater (0-2) on Friday coming off a 32-0 loss at new District 3-A opponent Rockwood.

"We're having to play a 3A team (this week), but they got beat by (two teams) in our district 42-0. I'd much rather play them than anybody in our district right now."

Alcoa (3-0) will visit Fulton (2-1) at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in a showdown of two of the state's top-ranked teams in their respective classifications.

The Tornadoes, the No. 1 team in Class 3A, have won all three of their games by 17 points or more, while the Falcons are expected to fall from their top ranking in Class 4A coming off a 20-14 loss Friday at archrival Austin-East.

In Friday's other games, Heritage (3-0) will travel to Seymour (1-2) looking to improve on its best start since 2000. Maryville (1-1) will attempt to start another winning streak against McMinn County (1-1) on the heels of a 38-17 win over Knoxville West, and William Blount (1-2) will take on winless Jefferson County (0-3). Sequoyah (0-3) will play at Class AAA Lenoir City (0-2).

All games Friday will kick off at 7:30 p.m.

First-year Governors coach David Gregory said his team, which squandered a 10-0 halftime lead Friday in a 24-10 loss to Bearden, won't approach a non-district game this week any differently, mostly because of the state's new postseason system. Non-district games are being used to help determine wild-card playoff berths.

"Your non-district games now are just about as important as the district games because of the wild-card implications and all that," Gregory said. "Every game's just as important as the next one now."

Ridge has no interest in thinking back to the Cherokees' district opener. He said some of his assistant coaches watched film of the game over the weekend, saving him the trouble of reliving a sloppy performance on both sides of the ball.

"I really didn't want to look at it," Ridge said.

Greenback senior tailback Trey Glenn's status for this week remains uncertain. Glenn, who suffered a head injury that delayed Friday's game for nearly a half-hour, was released from Roane Medical Center in Harriman late Friday night, Ridge said, and is expected to be fine.

But Ridge said he's not aware of the extent of Glenn's injuries, and he won't know until today whether Glenn will have a chance to play against Sweetwater, a team Ridge called "a pretty good matchup" for the Cherokees.

"I'll find out (today) what's wrong with (Glenn), but I don't know if he'll be able to play or not," Ridge said. "It depends on how bad it was."

Gregory expects William Blount to be back at full strength after widespread illness that closed Blount County Schools late last week prevented dozens of players from practicing.

He's more worried now about the mistakes that led to Friday's loss. Some of those, he said, were his own fault.

"Offensively, we looked good in the first half, and then (Bearden) made some big adjustments at halftime," Gregory said. "I kind of got away from the game plan (in the second half). I think I let them get me away from it. I should have stayed with what we do best. I didn't do a good job there."