By John Breech/STAFF

On Dec. 12 of last year, Camden County claimed the final football state title in Georgia when they knocked off of Northside, Warner Robins 31-3 in the state championship.

After over eight months of no football, the 2010 high school football season will unofficially kick off on Friday when most area teams will play their one and only preseason game. After weeks of hitting each other, the 11 teams in the area will finally get a chance to tackle someone in an opposing uniform.

In North Fulton, teams and local communities are turning the return of high school football into an event. Last week, Milton opened up their football stadium to everyone in the community for an affair that proved to be quite successful. Milton football fans were invited to mingle with players and eat food provided by local restaurants.

Not to be outdone, Roswell High School is marking the return of Hornet football by hosting a week long celebration where Hornet football fans and students alike can get deals from local businesses just for supporting Roswell football (story on pg. 46).

The first slate of preseason games will kickoff at 7:30 p.m. on Friday. Roswell will host former region 6-AAAAA rival Kell. The Longhorns were sent down to class AAAA for the 2010 season following region realignment.

Roswell and Kell might be former region rivals, but they’re not city rivals like Johns Creek High School and Northview. Those two teams will take to the gridiron at Johns Creek High School on Friday for the first ever meeting between the schools. The game will also represent another first, it will be the first game for new Northview football coach Chad Davenport, a former assistant at Peachtree Ridge.

Keeping up with the ‘first’ theme, Alpharetta will travel to Lambert on Friday in a game that will represent Lambert’s first foray into varsity football. The school, which opened last year, fielded a team in 2009 that played a mostly junior varsity schedule. The Raiders will then have two more weeks of practice before opening the season at home on Aug. 27 against North Cobb.

While AAAAA schools Roswell and Alpharetta will both be playing teams in lower classes, one local school decided to play a preseason game against a team that’s two classes higher. On Friday, AAAA Sprayberry will travel to AA Blessed Trinity for a 7:30 showdown.

This weekend’s preseason slate will conclude on Saturday when Chattahoochee travels to Milton. In 2008 and 2009, the two schools played thrilling week one regular season games against each other. Milton won 51-49 in 2008 while Chattahoochee won 19-16 in 2009. With the GHSA realigning each region in 2010, an opening game became in impossible because Hooch has to play 10 region games, leaving no room on their schedule for non-region games. The two schools solved that problem by agreeing to play a preseason game this Saturday at Milton.

Centennial, Mt. Pisgah, Fellowship and King’s Ridge will all have a full week of practice, but no game this weekend. Those five schools will play their preseason game the following week on Aug. 20.

Centennial will play host to AAAA power Marist. The private school inside the perimeter advanced to the second round of the playoffs last season. King’s Ridge will officially complete their move to the GHSA (from the GISA) on Aug. 20 when they host North Cobb Christian.

That same day, Mt. Pisgah will open up their brand new football field at their Patriot Athletic Campus when they play host to Mt. Paran. Fellowship will travel to River Ridge.

The high school regular season will kick off on August 27. The Beacon’s annual North Fulton football preview will be released five days before that.