The moment Demon football fans have been waiting for is here: opening night.

The Demons will take to the field and play under the Friday night lights for the first time in the new season tonight when they welcome Marion to town.  The team is coming off an 8-2 season and a playoff appearance a season ago, which was led by several seniors, especially on the defensive side of the ball.  Despite only having four underclassmen on the two-deep last year, though, newly-promoted head coach James Harris has confidence in this year’s defense.

“It’s going to be tough to replace those guys without a doubt,” Harris said.  “But our young guys have really bought into our summer conditioning.  Their attitudes and efforts in practice have been outstanding.  The guys we’re returning that have played are really talented.  So while we lose a lot of guys, I’m really excited about the guys we have.  Their attitudes and effort has just been really, really good.”

The team returns last season’s starting quarterback in Luke Turner, who is coming off of a massively productive baseball season.  He’ll look to carry that productivity over to another sport, and improve on his 1,213 yards, 16 touchdowns and six picks from a season ago.

You can catch all of tonight’s season-opening action on 106.1 FM KCII, with the Football Friday Preview Show at 6:00 and the Washington HyVee Pregame Show at 7:00.  Kickoff from Case Field is scheduled for 7:30.