WHEELING — Heading into week four of their schedule, the Linsly Cadets have thus far faced a barbarous schedule of three road games against teams– Westinghouse PA, Ashland, and St. Francis De Sales– who have a combined 10-2 record.

This week, some things are changing for the Cadets, though others remain the same.

Linsly will play a home game for the first time this season Friday– though they will play at West Liberty, not on the Linsly campus. They will also be facing their first opponent from the state of West Virginia. That opponent, though, will not be a departure from the elite opposition that Linsly has faced all season.

The Cadets (0-3) will host the Bridgeport Indians (3-0) at West Family Stadium with Linsly looking to get their new-look roster their first victory this season.

“We’ve gotten off to a difficult start, sitting at 0-3 and fielding a pretty young, inexperienced team,” Linsly head coach BJ Depew said. “It’s difficult to face the caliber of opponent that we’re facing week-in and week-out and we’ve got so much growing to do as individuals and as a team.

“Spirits are good and I give the kids a ton of credit for how hard they’re working and how much they are growing up. We’re positive and we’re having good days at practice, making improvements each day. We know that we have a lot of work ahead of us and we have a tough opponent coming to West Liberty this Friday with Bridgeport. We are excited for the challenge.”

Their opponent Friday has not been challenged yet this year, beating Buckhannon-Upshur 77-0, Morgantown 49-0, and East Fairmont 50-0 thus far.

In their most recent game against East Fairmont, Morgantown had 353 yards of offense. A trio of seniors– Josh Love (100 rushing yards, one touchdown), Timothy Jeffrees (88 rushing yards, two touchdowns), and Alex Moses (51 rushing yards, two touchdowns) featured heavily in that game and should figure to do so again Friday.

“I’m very impressed with them this year,” Depew said of Bridgeport. “We’ve seen them once and preparing for them is difficult, because what they do offensively is unique and it’s also forceful. No matter what they were doing schematically, the way they play is what makes them a strong team.

“They are an unbalanced single-wing offense. They appear to be very one-dimensional but the reality is with all the deception in their offense and the excellence with which they execute, it’s far from a one-dimensional offense. They choose to run it, they throw it when they’d like to, they throw to keep you off-balance. They’re very good at what you do and it really makes you defend every gap that they present as an offense. Their defense is playing very well, they haven’t given up a point yet, we’re well aware of that. Their offense and defense really complements each other really well– I would argue that their offense has as much to do with the shutouts as the defense.”

As for the Cadets, quarterback Braden Wade, along with top receivers Ramello Derr and Jaxon Murray, and top tailbacks Simon Hamp and Brody Cottrill, will look to put together a clean game and get some points against the so-far impregnable Bridgeport defense.

“On the offensive side of the ball I think we are executing better,” Depew said. “We still make some basic mistakes but they are becoming fewer and fewer. I want to see us improve on our execution, and obviously score some points. It’s a big deal when you’re facing a team that hasn’t given up a point yet. I think it inspires us to find ways to score on them. We find ways to score a couple times on them, get some stops on defense, you might have Bridgeport starting to question how this game’s going to go.”

Depew wants to see more from his defense as well.

“The biggest deficiency that we recognized over the first three weeks was probably in our tackling,” Depew said. “We’re starting quite a few young kids, several freshmen. It takes a little while when you first start playing high school football to gain enough confidence in yourself to be physical and make plays. We are getting better, we definitely saw progress from weeks two to three. We’ll have a lot of opportunities to tackle because they’re going to run it a lot.”

While he is looking for improvement out of his players, Depew is also looking forward to seeing them play in front of a home crowd.

“We definitely are excited to stay in town, and most importantly to have our fanbase,” the longtime Cadet coach said. “We will travel well up to West Liberty, we will have a lot more students at the game.

“It’ll be really nice to be in our hometown, have kids in the stands, we’ll have our band there. It’ll feel more like a welcoming environment for our kids, that’s for sure.”