Saraland football coach Jeff Kelly is approaching this week’s 2023 season opener like a “regular game week.”

On the surface, it looks like a lot more than that.

The Spartans are starting defense of their first state football title against a talent-filled, two-time reigning champion from another state.

Oh yeah, and the game is on national television.

Saraland will host Lipscomb (Tenn.) Academy at 7 p.m. Friday in a game televised by ESPN.

Not ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN News or another alternate ESPN channel.

“We honestly haven’t talked about it with the guys, haven’t talked about it being anything special,” Kelly said. “We are going to approach it with the same mindset we do every game. We will look at our opponent, look at us and, hopefully, go out and execute at a high level and finish plays and finish drives.

“I think our guys will function fine. It’s part of their makeup. We’ve been in some big games. I feel like we’ve played good people in the past. We’ve got a lot of guys returning. We just have to show up and go to work.”

RELATED: 5 Week 1 games to watch in Coastal Alabama

RELATED: AL.com preseason Power 25

RELATED: 23 games to watch in 2023

Saraland has appeared on the ESPN family of networks twice before.

The Spartans played Spanish Fort on ESPN2 in 2016 and Heard County, Ga., on ESPNU in 2017. Both of those games, however, were on the road and neither was on ESPN’s main network in its primetime slot.

“It’s huge,” Kelly said. “It’s an opportunity to showcase Saraland and all the great people associated with our school system from our students to our band to our cheerleaders to our administration.

“We are not an old school system. To go from having nothing to having the world watch you for 2.5 hours on Friday night is pretty special. I think it says a lot about how far we’ve come, about our players – who are tremendous young men and very talented – and about the great city where we live and work.”

Saraland played its first season of varsity football in 2010. The Spartans went 3-7 under first-year coach John Holman. Kelly took over in 2011 and has led Saraland to 118 victories and three Class 6A title game appearances, including last year’s win over Mountain Brook.

“I don’t think you can put a price tag on this level of exposure and ability to promote your community,” Saraland superintendent Aaron Milner said. “I take great pride in the fact that I think there are a lot of folks who never dreamed 10 years ago this could be a possibility for our school system.

“Basically, the entire country is going to see our community, our facilities and, more importantly, our student-athletes, student body, cheerleaders, band and just the sense of pride we have in Saraland. This is all the result of the job done by coach Kelly and his staff and the support provided by our school board to our students.”

Kelly said he expects the ESPN production crew of 20-30 people to roll into town Thursday in advance of Friday’s game. Matt Schick, Jordan Reid and Shelby Coppedge will be the announcing team for the game. Kelly said he doesn’t anticipate having a lot of extra duties on his plate due to the national TV appearance.

“We’ve had a lot of media requests,” he said. “We obviously deal with ticket sales, season ticket sales, getting the venue set up and everything that comes with a typical first game of the season, but I don’t there is anything extra, which is good.”

The matchup itself should be intriguing. Lipscomb went 13-0 a year ago, including an early season victory at Alabama Class 7A power Thompson. The Mustangs lost their 2023 opener last week 35-10 to national power IMG Academy.

NFL Hall of Famer Kevin Mawae’s team has a bevy of top recruits including junior QB Deuce Knight, a transfer from George County, Miss., and senior Tennessee commits Kaleb Beasley and Edwin Spillman.

“One of our biggest challenges this week on top of playing a good football team is that this is really Lipscomb’s fourth game,” Kelly said. “They played two jamborees and then played last week against IMG. They are already in midseason form.

“That really puts the onus on us to go out and compete and play well. They’ve got a lot of highly rated players, but I feel like we have some pretty good football players here as well.”

Saraland has star power of its own, including reigning Mr. Football and Alabama commit Ryan Williams and Texas QB commit KJ Lacey. The Spartans went 14-1 a year ago to win the 6A state title.

Still, Kelly said this year’s team has something to prove.

“We didn’t win our region,” he said. “I felt like a lot of times we didn’t play as well as we would have liked to. Last year is over, and any preseason rankings reflect last year. We are back on the bottom of the mountain with everyone else. We have to prove we can climb it again one week at a time. Once you’ve had success, can you sustain it? That’s what we have to try to do.”

STAR POWER

Top recruits for each team with state ranking according to On3 industry rankings and college commitments.

LIPSCOMB ACADEMY

Class of 2024

Kaleb Beasley, DB, Tennessee (1)

Edwin Spillman, LB, Tennessee (8)

Class of 2025

Deuce Knight, QB, Uncommitted (4)

Chauncey Gooden, OL, Uncommitted (6)

CJ Jimcoily, DB, Uncommitted (11)

SARALAND

Class of 2025

Ryan Williams, WR, Alabama (1)

KJ Lacey, QB, Texas (7)

Antonio Coleman, DL, Uncommitted (14)

Dillon Alfred, WR, Uncommitted (15)