Earlier today, the Iowa High School Athletic Association released football schedules for the 2018 and ’19 seasons. The District portion of the schedule has been known for nearly two months, but now all nine opponents, playing dates, and sites are out.

Greene County starts the 2018 season with four non-district games. The season opener is at Dewey Field in Perry for the annual renewal of the Cowbell Series on Friday, August 24 vs. the Blue Jays.  The first of four home games at Linduska Field in Jefferson is with non-district opponent Nevada on Aug. 31, followed by non-district road games in Des Moines vs. Saydel on Sept. 7, and at Gilbert on Sept. 14.

The Class 2A District 8 schedule starts with a home game on Sept. 21 vs. Shenandoah, followed by a trip to Carroll on Sept. 28 vs. Kuemper Catholic. The October portion of the schedule has Greene County at home vs. Atlantic on Oct. 5, at Red Oak on Oct. 12, and home vs. OA-BCIG (Ida Grove) on Oct. 19.

The Rams dropped to Class 2A from 3A for the 2018 and ’19 seasons. They were 1-8 each of the past two years. Greene County had one of the highest opponents’ winning percentages among the 64 schools in 3A each of the past two seasons, but that will not  likely be the case in 2018 in 2A. Only four of this seasons’ nine opponents had a winning record in 2017, and none of those teams lost fewer than three games.

The Iowa High School Athletic Association did the complete scheduling for all football programs in the state. A release on Tuesday gave some numbers about the process. It stated there are 331 varsity football programs scheduled to play in 2018 and ’19, with 266 in the 11-player game, and 65 in the eight-player game. Schools submitted lists to the Association of teams they would like to have on the non-district schedule and 183 in 11-player received all four schools they requested. All but 6.4% of 11-player programs received at least three of the four teams requested.

The Rams will play the same teams in 2019 at opposite sites.