Not often can it be said that the James Buchanan Rockets have a bigger football team than it’s opponent … Friday night they will.

JB is hosting all 23 of the Fairfield Green Knights at 7 in a non-league game at Rocket Stadium.

Despite getting handed a 49-6 loss to Penns Valley in their season-opener 2 weeks ago, don’t be fooled the Green Knights won’t come to play.

Last season Fairfield finished 4-7 and reached the District 3 Class A championship which it lost 68-42 to Steel-High.

“I think this is a rare situation that we’ll have more players on the sidelines,” said JB coach David Miller, who will have 35 players suiting up. “I think we might be a little bit more athletic and physical, but they’re a very scrappy team and have some good athletes. Their quarterback (Zach Koons) got to play a good bit last year and Garrett Stadler is a pretty good wide receiver. Their team will come out with a lot of intensity.”

In the loss to Penns Valley, Koons was 4 of 11 for 110 yards and 1 TD. Joey Quealy led in rushing with 48 yards and Nic Wheeler caught 2 passes for 22 yards.

As a team the Green Knights struggled, gaining only 6 first downs while giving up 400 yards, including 215 rushing.

“We should have depth in our favor, but we have to do some things better than last week,” Miller said. “They run the Wing-T so we have to be aggressive attacking the gaps. Last week we sat back on our heels. Like we do every week we are challenging our defensive lineman and linebackers to step into the gaps and take away the running lanes.”

Last week, Big Spring exploited a lot of weaknesses, offensively and defensively, and handed the Rockets a 34-0 loss.

“We watched the game film and showed the players places we had opportunities,” Miller said. “We kind of showed them if blocked here, tackled there or ran the ball here we could’ve done better. At this point we just have to learn from our mistakes and get better.”

The Rockets hope to get their running game back on track to try to help wear down the Fairfield defense. Last week, JB was limited to 77 rushing yards, but QB Sebastian Wise threw for 190 yards.

“We need to sustain our blocks longer,” Miller said. “And with them running a 4-2-5 the backers will be coming so we’ll have to pick them up.”