The ties between Porters Chapel and Tallulah Academy run deep.

Players from both schools attend the same churches, hang out in the same places, even have the same relatives. For a few hours this Friday night all of that will be put on hold as they try to knock the snot out of each other.

PCA and Tallulah, rivals in the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools separated by just 20 miles, open the 2010 football season at Eagles Field. The game is rife with subplots and common bonds, with maybe a dose of spite thrown in for good measure.

“There’s a lot of stories,” said John Weaver, who will coach his first game for PCA after two seasons at Tallulah. “Yeah, I know those guys, I coached them for two years. There’s extra motivation. But I won’t play a down. The best thing I can do is get our guys ready for four quarters of football.”

The biggest subplot in the game is found on the coaching staffs.

Weaver served as an assistant coach at Tallulah in 2008 under Doug Branning, and as head coach last season. Weaver followed Branning, who had left Tallulah to become headmaster at PCA, to Vicksburg and became coach of the Eagles last spring.

Weaver was replaced by Nick Evans, who will make his debut as Tallulah’s head coach on Friday night.

Weaver joked that he’ll probably get booed by Tallulah’s fans. If so, he might be able to compare catcalls with first-year Tallulah defensive coordinator Chris Busby.

Busby spent more than a decade at Porters Chapel in a variety of roles before leaving the school in a bitter split in 2008. Busby spent the 2009 season as an assistant at St. Aloysius — where, ironically, he coached against Tallulah in a 28-6 win in Week 2.

Busby and Weaver also served together as assistants on PCA’s football staff in 2005, helping the team reach the Class A semifinals.

“It’s kind of different being on the other side of the field. It’s going to seem weird looking across and seeing the gym instead of standing next to it,” Busby said. “All in all, it’s a game that I want to win. Deep down, whoever wins I’m OK with, but I want my team to win.”

Besides the coaching staffs, there’s few similarities between the teams that opened the 2009 season — Tallulah won 27-23 — and the ones that kick off the 2010 campaign.

Tallulah is returning just four starters from last year’s 7-5 playoff squad. Leading rusher Cody Landrem is back, but a lot of the team’s other offensive weapons graduated. Landrem ran for 875 yards last season, and is closing in on 3,000 for his career.

“We like what we’re seeing,” Busby said. “We’re working on the adjustments from our scrimmage and our passing routes. Everything we had in place is working, it’s just a matter of finishing it.”

PCA has only a handful of players back from last season. A number of graduations, transfers and young players moving up in the ranks led to a de facto overhaul of the entire roster.

Among the new toys Weaver has to work with are freshman quarterback Jonah Masterson, receiver Chris Marshall and running back Steven Moore.