NEW ULM – The fourth week of high school football in New Ulm sees one of the local teams – Minnesota Valley Lutheran – at home Friday night.

Both New Ulm Cathedral and New Ulm will play Saturday afternoon contests.

MVL hosts Cedar Mountain/Comfrey at 7 p.m. Friday for its Homecoming

New Ulm Cathedral entertains Red Rock Central at 2 p.m. Saturday at Johnson Field while New Ulm plays at 3 p.m. Saturday at St. Peter.

CM/C (0-3) at MVL (1-2), 7 p.m. FRIDAY at JOHNSON FIELD

CM/C comes into this Southwest District, East Subdistrict game winless at 0-3 but MVL head coach Jim Buboltz said that it is a young team with some key players out due to injury.

“They have a real talented quarterback [sophomore Eli Samuelson] so that makes it dangerous,” Buboltz said. “They also have some talented specialty people that we need to keep out eyes on.”

Buboltz said that CM/C is a team that will run and pass.

“They will try and get the ball in the air and spread you out and do a lot of different things there also,” he said.

Last year, CM/C held MVL to 20 points.

“They mixed up their defenses a lot,” Buboltz said. “That kept them in the game and they scored on us with their defense last year. They have used a new scheme the last two years on the defensive side and it caused us some concerns.”

MVL is coming off of a big win last week against New Ulm Cathedral and Buboltz said that his team will not have a letdown this week against winless CM/C.

“You often hear that could happen but I think our guys will take on the mindset that now it is time to get going,” Buboltz said. “We cannot look past anybody – the last five games we have had it has been good competition so we have to be ready.”

RED ROCK CENTRAL (2-1) at NEW ULM CATHEDRAL (1-2), 2 p.m. SATURDAY at JOHNSON FIELD

RRC comes into this game riding a two-game winning streak with victories against CM/C (29-7) and Springfield (20-6).

“They are off to a good start,” Cathedral head coach Denny Lux said. “They have a number of running backs that they use and they look very solid both on offense and defense.

“They will use four running backs and their quarterback likes to throw on the run. He likes to throw a lot of shorter passes to the outside but they are not afraid to throw down the field.”

Lux said that the Falcons are 50-50 when it comes to the run or pass and that coach Isaac Jenniges is not afraid to let his quarterback throw.

“Red Rock Central is a good-size team, so we are going to have to use our speed and know our assignments,” Lux said.

The Greyhounds get an extra day of rest with the Saturday game which is something they need right now.

“That helps us quite a bit,” he said. “The MVL game was a pretty physical game and some of our players are just getting used to that type of game on the varsity level. Having that extra day of rest and that extra day of practice will be good as we are trying to eliminate the mistakes that we have made.”

Running back John Gillis will be out for the remainder of the season while Cathedral still has Tyler Mack and Jacob Geiger.

“So we will decide during the week who we will use and when B.J. Mages, our offensive right tackle is going to have to take a little break,” Lux said. “We will use sophomore Joey Griebel there.”

With all of the injuries, Lux said that his offense may settle back into a more basic offense.

“We may limit the play selection a little bit especially early in the game just to get those players feeling good about where they are at,” Lux said.

NEW ULM (1-2) at ST. PETER (1-2), 3 p.m. SATURDAY, GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS COLLEGE in ST. PETER

The more things change the more they stay the same.

Nothing has changed for the St. Peter football team in its offensive and defensive schemes over the years.

“They run the triple option on offense and on defense they use the 4-4 and a cover-three defense,” New Ulm head coach Corey Kneeshaw said. “My coaches told me that they have used this system for a while. They are pretty good at running it and they will be a tough test for us.”

Kneeshaw said that the Eagles are not going to do things differently on offense but they are going to do some things to correct some of their mistakes.

“I firmly believe in my system that we brought out here,” Kneeshaw said. “But one of the things that I have had to take a long look at as a coach is the weather conditions. In California, we do not have as much rain or weather issues. So I have had to look internally at some things that we were doing.

The Eagles will try to make adjustments to counter some things, including not running out fo the shotgun every single play if the conditions are wet.

“We can go under center and get the snap that way but we are still going to run the same offense. We can still run everything that we run,” Kneeshaw said.

New Ulm has been able to move the ball against all three of its opponents, but Kneeshaw is not happy with the amount of mistakes his team has made.

“I would like to see the percentage up more of where we are sustaining the drives,” Kneeshaw said. “I was happy about how we came out in the second half against Marshall – the first two scores we had against Marshall was against their first-string defense. But we need to do a better job of sustaining drives. We make a good play but then something will happen – a false start or a bad snap – which is why we looked at going under center only if we get into a weather situation. If it is dry we wil run our normal offense.”

New Ulm has also played two strong opponents the past two weeks in Tri-City United (ranked seventh in Class AAA and Marshal ranked third in Class AAAA).