FERRIDAY— The Huntington Academy Hounds are ready to get back to normal following the disruption of Hurricane Gustav.

Apparently, so is the Christian Home Educators Fellowship (CHEF) football team, which has only played one game this season.

CHEF contacted Huntington coach Chad Harkins about playing on the teams’ off-week, and the two will face off Friday.

The Patriots have only played one game this season, but are defending their undefeated season and Louisiana Christian School Athletic Association 2007 championship.

“We haven’t got any film on them. Their coach and I did talk on phone a little bit,” Harkins said. “He faxed me some things about what they do on offense, and I faxed him some of what we do on offense. We’ll just have to put something together.”

The game will be played at MPSA District 6-A Huntington, as CHEF’s Baton Rouge area is still suffering power outages from the Hurricane. As of early this week, Harkins said, many of CHEF’s players were still without electricity, and it could be weeks before the last people in Louisiana’s capital get their lights back.

So as tough as Gustav was on the Miss-Lou area, CHEF knows the same disruptions.

“We’re just going to try to keep things as normal as we can, go through normal week and have as much of a normal practice as possible,” Harkins said.

Normal, the Hounds hope, is getting their second win of the season after falling to Trinity, 34-12, this past Saturday.

Harkins said his team had a tough time keeping up with the Saints’ AA-caliber speed, but it was not a focus in practice this week.

“We’re not having to simulate it because we’ve got some pretty quick guys ourselves. And we’re not going to play anybody from here on out that’s got the speed that they did,” he said. “Thing was we just had a couple and Trinity has four or five. Hopefully we’ll be the guys with the speed from here on out.”

Those speedy hounds include wingbacks Jeremy Randall, a senior, and sophomore Andreas Swanson.

Harkins will also rely on 5-foot-11-inch, 200-pound linebacker and tight end Kevin Brown to bring the Hounds.

“We really worked on our assignments on the o-line and blocking with our running backs. That’s been a weak point for us,” he said. “Hopefully they do a better job of blocking than in the last few weeks. Also our pass coverage seems to be getting a little better with each week.”

But Harkins is not worried by the Hounds’ 1-2 record. They were in the same place at this time last season and went to the third round of the playoffs.

“We’re just going to try to get this game out of the way and get back into district games,” he said. “We’ve got four district games in-a-row after this week, and we look to be 6-2 in five weeks. I think there’s a great chance of that.”