JEFFERSON TWP — Talk about a motivated football team.

Knoch has plenty of reasons to be fired about its football season opener at 7 p.m. Friday against Hampton.

The Knights are playing at home. They only had one home game all of last season as artificial turf was being installed at Knoch Stadium during the bulk of football season.

They get to play on that artificial turf surface. The Knights scrimmaged against Keystone Oaks on it last weekend.

They face a Hampton team that has shut them out in each of the past three seasons, including 48-0 last year.

“We are well aware,” second-year Knights coach Tim Burchett said. “When you play a neighboring school, you always want to do well, make a good showing for yourself. That hasn’t happened against them.

“They’ve outscored us by like 100-0 (127) in those three games. Hopefully, we’ll be able to score on them and stay in the game this time.”

While Knoch finished 1-9 last year, Hampton is coming off a 5-6 season, losing in the first round of the playoffs. Hampton’s wins over Knoch the past three years are by 49-0, 30-0 and 48-0.

“They are a playoff team every year, very consistent,” Burchett said. “They are what we aspire to be.”

“Our guys know exactly what we’re walking into,” Hampton coach Steve Sciullo said. “We’ve been in trap game situations before. They’re at home, playing on brand new turf, they are going to be fired up and ready.

“Before we shut them out, they shut us out. I know what that feels like. Knoch looks much improved over last year. Their coach has put in a different scheme defensively and we’re all working on figuring that out. We need to be ready to play at a high level.”

Sciullo wasn’t satisfied with his team’s level of play during last week’s scrimmage against Franklin Regional.

“I’m all about effort and execution,” he said. “Those are the most important two things for me and I wasn’t happy with where we were at that way in that scrimmage.”

Sciullo has plenty to like about his standout players, though. Running back-linebacker Brock Borgo ran for 1,017 yards and five touchdowns last year after producing 1,085 yards and 17 scores as a sophomore.

Senior offensive lineman-defensive end Gabe Gannelli had 13 quarterback sacks during his junior season.

“Brock is an extremely versatile player,” Sciullo said. “He can run inside, he can run outside. He runs with speed and power. We can line him up in the slot and he can catch passes. He does it all.

“Gabe is all about relentless assault. He’s all over the field.”

Borgo needs 1,700 yards to break Steve Paskorz’ career school record “and he’s got a very good shot at that,” Sciullo said.

Hampton’s quarterback is senior Adrian Midgely, who started five games a year ago. He threw for 300 yards and four touchdowns in the Talbots’ playoff loss to Montour.

“In his first start, Adrian almost broke the school record for most pass attempts in as game. I have full confidence in him putting the ball up.”

Burkett said running back Anthony Nicolazzo, outside linebacker Ethan Alwine and linemen Wyatt Foster and Parker Anderson stood out in the scrimmage against Keystone Oaks, which won nine games last year.

“We held our own against them,” Burchett said. “We ran a vanilla offense that day ... I’m not saying our offense is exotic, but we’ll have some things ready for Hampton.”

Junior quarterback Codi Mullen is coming off a school-record passing season for Knoch. Jackson Bauman, a sophomore, is his top returning receiver.

“Our offense is designed to put the ball in Codi’s hands and let him make decisions,” Burchett said. “We’re still a work in progress, clearly, but we’re anxious to get it going.”

Hampton leads the series between the teams, 28-26-1.