Back with about 10 days left in the month of July, Gary Fowler and Bennett Jones were hard at work, side-by-side, preparing the Clayton football team for the upcoming season.

A couple of days later, Jones switched addresses, taking the head coaching position at West Johnston High School. Friday, they'll be on opposite sidelines vying for a win only one of them will go home with.

They'll leave with their friendship intact. Since Jones has taken the head job in Wildcat land, he's been amazed at many Fowlerisms he'd picked up and not realized. Fowler, meanwhile, has been working to fill the player's coach void Jones left.

"Coaching is all about figuring out how you can get that kid to play," Fowler says. "How you can keep him motivated in school and on the field. And that's one thing Bennett's always been good at, knowing when to chew kids and when to love kids."

That personal knowledge of each other, from the two head coaches to the handful of assistant coaches Jones worked with so closely during his years at Clayton, is the underlying theme of Friday's game.

"You try to go into it treating it just like another game," Jones said. "But it's not, and that's more so for us coaches who've worked together than it is for the kids."

Both coaches are quick to point to the play on the field as the much more important factor in the match-up than their presence.

"This is not the Gary Fowler and Bennett Jones Show," Fowler says. "If this was a long time ago, I might go for that bulletin board stuff trying to get our guys riled up. But we've got a lot of work to do still on ourselves.

"We're trying to get kids lined up right even at this point of the season."

Jones knows first-hand of the Comets' dedication to their offensive and defensive systems.

"He knows us [as coaches], he knows the kids," Fowler says of Jones. "He's been with most of these kids here since they were in the ninth grade. He knows how I think and I kind of know how he thinks."

And it's that knowledge that's forced him to turn off the scouting tape early most nights this week.

"You sit there and get to thinking and end up just overanalyzing stuff," Jones says. "It just gets to the point where you have to turn off the tape and stop thinking. It's still about the kids playing football and whose kids play better."

Both know what the other's goals are for Friday. "They're so good at adjustments because of the experience on that staff," Jones says of Clayton. "They know what they're good at, what they're not good at and stick to what they're trying to do."

West wants to continue its string of big offensive plays and scoring outputs with a balanced rushing and passing attack. Clayton wants to turn the game into a pure battle of the trenches where points are hard to come by.

"The one thing we have not done this season is deliver a KO punch," Jones concluded. "We've let some teams hang around when we had comfortable leads and its ended up being a ball game."

And that may be what Jones fears most. Because he knows all the Comets want is a chance. And he knows how many times Clayton's come through when its had that one single chance. After all, he was in those same shoes just a few weeks ago.

Clay's look at Friday's games; all games kick off at 7:30 p.m.

Clayton (2-5, 1-2) at West Johnston (7-0, 3-0)

Clayton's can't seem to get off to a good start in the first half. If the Comets had played first halves like several of their second halves, they'd probably be 5-2 instead of 2-5. West Johnston, meanwhile, has started well and kept it going. How dominant have the Wildcats been so far in 2008? They've only trailed for one play this season. Every other time, they've been tied or in the lead.

This match up, to me, comes down to the Comets' defensive effort against West Johnston's passing attack.

More so than ever, I've seen multiple teams completely lose receivers in pass coverage. You can't do that against West or you'll be running out the kick block team on the next play.

I'm not saying I don't think West can run the ball on Clayton. They might put up another 350 on the ground, but I just don't see it.

Offensively, Clayton needs at least one six-minute long drive that produces points to have a chance to win.

If they can get one of those in each half, you'd have to really like the Comets' chances. Even if they don't get those needed long drives, Clayton's probably going to win the time of possession battle. But they'll need to win it decisively to hand West its first loss of the season.

Special Note: The gates will open at West at 5:30 p.m. since the band will be performing before the game. Get there early if you want to see the band or not since you'll have to work your way through the security check.

Smithfield-Selma (5-2, 1-2) at Garner (4-3, 2-1)

Garner, much like SSS, has had its share of first-half travails in league play. The Trojans scored 24 unanswered points to get by Knightdale last Friday night after trailing at the half. Neither team has shown the kind of consistent big play threat this season that they've had in years past. The big plays still may be there but they haven't been as prevalent as they have been in years past.

Southern Lee (1-4, 0-2) at South Johnston (2-4, 0-2)

It's a rematch of the contest where it all ended for South Johnston last season. The Cavaliers upset South in the first round of the 3-A playoffs but, like the Trojans, haven't had a great amount of success so far this season. An 0-3 hole in conference play makes it a tough climb for the loser to get back into the playoff hunt.

Princeton (2-4) at Spring Creek (0-6)

The Gators have struggled mightily on defense (giving up 42.5 points per game so far) and Princeton has started to find some balance on offense, with a two-headed running attack. Defensively, the Bulldogs are improving as well. Still, the Gators have won six of the first seven match-ups in this relatively new Carolina 1-A Conference clash.

North Duplin (2-4) at North Johnston (1-5)

The 2008 season hasn't gone as planned for either of the Norths. North Duplin has just one win a year after making the NCHSAA 1-A state championship game, while North Johnston has three one-point losses already on its resume. But as the Carolina 1-A Conference season begins somebody's going to get a fresh start.