By Michael Letendre

I’ve asked this once and now, I’m going to poise this question one more time:

Are you ready for some football?

I think many of our readers have been ready for a little 11-v-11 football since the conclusion of the Battle for the Bell in 2019.

And the last time that our local teams took to the gridiron seems like a lifetime ago for most of us.

Well, we’re about ten days away from the start of the 2021 campaign for both the Bristol Central and Bristol Eastern programs.

Who truly knows how the seasons will go for each team but the bottom line is Friday Night Lights are returning to the Mum City.

We’ve peeked at the schedules for both teams over the last couple months and in terms of opponents, it won’t be business as usual.

The focus today are the new opponents both Central and Eastern will compete against for the first time.

What’s the constant between both Bristol squads in 2021?

There won’t be any Middletown or Windsor teams to tangle with.

That’s a big deal because in terms of history, the Rams and Lancers have struggled against both the Blue Dragons and Warriors.

The Bristol squads carry a combined eight wins against Middletown and Windsor over its collective history.

On the flip side, the Bristol squads have 37 losses against those powerful foes.

Eastern has never beaten Middletown (0-9) and last defeated Windsor 30-28 back on October 25, 2014 via a game-winning 25 yard field goal by Jeremy Meccariello.

Central beat Windsor by a 34-6 final in October of 2019 but the Rams carry 10 more losses than victories against the Warriors all-time.

And in another weird quirk this year, the Meriden squads (Platt and Maloney) are not on the Bristol slate in 2021.

It’s very rare that Maloney and Platt won’t be playing Bristol as the teams from Meriden are a long time CCC South rival for Central and Eastern.

Having those opponents off the schedule means new teams and challengers on the horizon.

Central will battle a squad it has never competed against before while Eastern has two new teams scheduled for this year.

The Rams will square off against Tolland on October 22 and the battle should be a good one for the program.

The Eagles were 7-3 in 2019 playing in the CCC, Division III East line-up and will be stepping up a bit in competition against Central.

Tolland will certainly have its hands full against future UCONN standout Victor Rosa.

For Eastern, the locals have non-conference Wilbur Cross to compete against on September 24 while October 8 will see the Lancers battle Capital/Achievement – an opponent of Central over the last few years.

As the season unfolds for Central and Eastern, TBE will explore each showdown every week as scholastic football returns to the Mum City.