It’s “go-time” for the Faith Christian Academy Lions football team.

The season starts Friday for the Lions as they travel to Loganville to face Covenant Christian Academy, an ICSGA North opponent, at 7 p.m.

“This is the roughest week,” said Lions head coach Jim McClelland. “You get those first-game jitters around this time of the year.”

FCA, which is in the ICSGA South, will hope to have a much better start in 2009 than it did in 2008. Last season, the Lions traveled to Grace Academy and got hammered 52-40 in the very first game in team history.

“This game is going be tough,” McClelland said. “It’s going to be a true test of where my guys are at this point.”

McClelland hasn’t seen any footage of Covenant Christian, but said both teams appear evenly matched — on paper. He feels the game will come down to fourth quarter execution.

Lions defensive coordinator Mark Kemler said he’d like to see his defense hit hard early in order to “establish the tempo of the game from the start.”

FCA linebacker/halfback Robert Jackson, the reigning Griffin Daily News Player of the Year, believes his team will be ready.

“The team and myself are in better shape this year than we were this time last year,” said Jackson, a junior. “I believe we will play well on Friday.”