The first week of football is now in the books for high schools and colleges around the nation. And the professional season opens tonight with the Super Bowl champion New York Giants squaring off with the Washington Redskins.

But here in the Troy area, the big news yesterday was the postponement of Troy University’s matchup on the gridiron with the defending national champion LSU Tigers. The city of Baton Rouge took a huge hit from Hurricane Gustav and there was too much damage done to LSU’s home turf to play on this Saturday.

My prayers are with all who are trying to put their lives back together in that area. We will all be thinking about you.

I am now going to introduce Nascone’s Predictions to the Pike County area.

And away we go with the predictions.

First up is the opening region game for the No. 6-ranked Charles Henderson Trojans against the Tallassee Tigers.

The Trojans will be up against another physical and fast defense when Tallassee comes to town tomorrow night. The Trojans will win 28-13.

Next up are the No. 8-ranked Pike County Bulldogs, who will travel to face the Wicksburg Panthers in their opening region game Friday night.

The Bulldogs are hungry for that first win of the season. Brad Waggoner will have the troops aligned correctly for a 21-10 victory over the Panthers.

The Hooper Academy Colts invade Pike Liberal Arts School Friday for a region war with the No. 6-ranked Patriots.

The Pats’ defense stood strong last week against then No. 4-ranked Morgan Academy and they will do it again against Hooper to the tune of a 35-10 win in Troy.

The Goshen Eagles will prevail over Zion Chapel in a close contest, 28-24.

That is all for Nascone’s Predictions and I will see you next week with results and next Friday’s predictions.

Matt Nascone is the sports editor of The Messenger. He can be reached at 670-6315 or online at matt.nascone@troymessenger.com.