As off-season workouts continue to move forward, the 2018 high school football season is less than two months away.
Entering year two under the Utah High School Activities Association’s latest realignments, the Emery Spartans will once again be apart of the 3A North. The division also features Morgan, Union, Carbon, Grantsville and Judge Memorial.
The season itself will kick-off on August 17 as the Spartans welcome in Richfield, the same team ended their season in 2017 in the opening round of the state tournament.
“We watch film on last year’s game and it was a winnable game for us,” said head coach Jon Faimalo. “I think the kids are looking forward to playing Richfield again and hopefully coming out on top this time.”
The first four games of the season will be non-league affairs. The Spartans will then open up 3A North play on Sept. 14 on the road against Judge Memorial.
Following the same format of last season, the Spartans will play nine regular season games, all consecutively. The final standings will determine the 10th week, which acts as a play in game for the 3A State Tournament.
“It is tough to play nine straight weeks when your roster is thin,” said Faimalo. “Five of those nine games are on the road and that makes even that much tougher.”
The first three region games will take place on the road against Judge Memorial, Carbon and Morgan. The three-game road stretch appears to the be the most daunting stretch of the season.
“That’s a really tough stretch, so we aren’t really looking forward to that,” Faimalo said jokingly. “That’s the way the schedule fell this year and so we’ll have to grind through it and try to pull some wins when we can.”
Below is the complete 2018 regular season schedule for the team and the complete interview with Faimalo from Wednesday, June 26.