Pike Liberal Arts head coach Gene Allen is just glad to be home.

After a three-week stretch of road games, the Patriots coach said he is looking forward to playing before a home crowd when his team faces the Chambers Academy Rebels today. Kickoff is 7 p.m. Dewight Ward Field in Delaney Kervin Stadium

“Now we’ve got four of the last five games at home,” Allen said. “I hope we get a big crowd to come out to watch us play. We’ve had a great fan support on the road, so hopefully we’ll have a few more at home.”

The Patriots, 5-1 overall and 2-1 in the region, face region opponent Chambers, who is 2-3 in the season and 1-1 in the region.

“Chambers is a very good opponent for us,” Allen said. “We’re looking forward to getting to the game.”

Allen said Chambers has a very competitive offense.

“Chambers has got a really good team, especially offensively. They’ve got four quality backs and we’re going to have to tackle well and play our assignments how we’re supposed to or otherwise we’ll have some problems,” Allen said.

Allen said the team had looked to alter their snap counts at practice in order to be able to compete with Chambers’ aggressive offense.

“They do a good job of changing snap counts and making you jump off sides so we’re going to have to be disciplined and we worked on that a lot last week,” Allen said. “We’ve just altered the snap count. We’ve had our scout team do some stuff kind of like they did. It’s going to be different in the game. They’re going to be hyped up and ready to play ,and it’s probably going to be short yardage, and they’re going to want to come off the ball.”

Allen did say he wouldn’t be surprised if his players jumped off the ball once or twice during the game Friday, but he said it was a lose-lose situation as a coach.

“I’m not going to be surprised if we have one or two, but I hope we won’t,” Allen said.

“If they do, I know they’re ready to come off the ball, and they’re playing aggressive. It’s kind of a Catch 22. We don’t want them sitting back on their heals waiting taking on stuff. I think we’ll be fine.”