The anticipation is building for players, coaches and fans as the Douglas Bulldogs move closer towards kicking off their new season against their rivals from Bisbee.

Bruce Whetten / Douglas Dispatch The Douglas Bulldogs will look to retain custody of the Copper Pick when they kick off the 2009 football season Friday night at Bisbee. This game will be the 139th meeting between the two teams. Game time is 7 p.m. Advance game tickets are available at the Athletic Director’s office.

Kickoff for Friday’s game is set for 7 p.m. in Bisbee.

According to the NFHS.com website this year’s game is the 139th meeting between the two schools making one of the top five oldest rivalries in the country.

The Bulldogs scrimmaged Empire High School in Tucson last week.

Douglas’ football coach Dick Keith said afterwards defensively his team looked very good.

“Our first defense was, I felt, outstanding,” he said. “Our second defense broke down a little bit and they scored on them.”

Offensively, the coach says, his team still needs some work.

“It was more confusion on blocking priorities than anything else,” the coach said. “Our kids were misreading the defense and almost on every play we kept missing one man.”

Keith said he and his coaches will work on making the corrections needed making sure the kids understand who to block.

The coach said the running game looked good but the passing game was not where he’d like it to be.

“I’m a little concerned about our deep passing game,” the coach said. “I’m probably going to have to go to a short out, slant, hook than a deeper post or fly pattern.”

Keith is hoping as the season progresses maybe the deeper passing patterns will take shape.

The coach refuses to take Bisbee lightly and hopes to have some of these concerns corrected by Friday’s season opener.

“We need to get that part of the offensive game corrected,” the coach said.

Keith has played in the Bisbee vs. Douglas game and been a head coach three times and assistant as well and has never lost to the Pumas.

“I remember several years back one of my players commented to me it was tough for him to get up for this game because Douglas had dominated the game for so many years,” the coach said.

Keith said as a young man growing up watching and later playing in this game it was a “dog fight” every year.

“Regardless of what record you had going into that game nothing was for sure,” he said. “That is what I’ve tried to instill in these kids is to not be cocky. … There is nothing that Bisbee would love more than to beat us. … As a coach and a player I’ve never had a loss to Bisbee and I certainly don’t want one now.”

Bisbee scrimmaged last Friday and Coach Keith and several of his assistants were in the stands scouting.

The coach knows that like he did in his scrimmage, the Pumas did not show all their plays and worked on just the basics.

In Friday’s season opener Keith feels if his team can take care of what it needs to do both offensively and defensively it should be ok.

“I’ve always had the mind set to let them figure out a way to stop us,” he said.

The coach said the good old feeling is starting to come back and he finds himself getting a little nervous as game time gets closer.

Keith admits that’s a good thing – if you’re not nervous then something is wrong.