Athletic director Jennifer Burks puts a lot of thought into scheduling the homecoming game.
“You don’t want to play against a team you know you’re going to get killed by on homecoming,” she said, but “you do want to try to play a team you’re confident in beating.”

When it comes to these games, if you’re the away team, you may feel disrespected.
Why? Well, because if you are scheduled as the away team on a Homecoming game the home team is pretty much saying we don’t take you as a threat and they know they will blow you out in front of our students and alumni.
Schools usually will schedule a weaker opponent for these games because, well there’s not really that big of a reason other then you have to win this game regardless just because it’s homecoming.

Now if Perry needs an automatic win, they definitely got it beating Corona del Sol 70-24 which didn’t seem close ever since kickoff. Now the Aztecs are traditionally more of a baseball and basketball school but their football program has some major work to be done.

How does Perry get to choose to play a struggling team for Homecoming?
Well, they don’t technically but I was able to get an inside scoop during an interview with Mrs. Burks. She stated that Perry has a “region chair representative” that is allowed to give input on teams they are interested in playing. For example, Burks said “we can give our region chair representative our 10 teams we want to play and 10 we don’t want to play, but ultimately it’s up to the whole region chair of schools that decides.”

But further on, into the interview, it was discussed that Perry has a set schedule of teams they must play in their region such as Hamilton and Chandler High School. Also region chairs like to honor the school’s rivalry game which will be played as the last game on their schedule. Perry will play their rival Basha for the last game of the year.

Now another big impact on the high school’s Homecoming game is on STUGO.
STUGO  generally has many activities that the school likes to honor such as the carnival, spirit week and the actual Homecoming dance. So many schools for their Homecoming game will work around what STUGO wants to do.
For Perry they had spirit days throughout the week, carnival on Thursday and the game on Friday, followed by the traditional dance on Saturday. So as you can see a lot goes into this whole event. Mrs. Burks did state that “if the game has to be on a particular day then STUGO would have to work around that date, but we do try to give them as much time as they need to get ready and create a schedule for a week of Homecoming festivities.”

Homecoming win, is much more than others. It really helps cap off the school week with a bang and creates a happy vibe for students heading to the dance the following day.