An abbreviated six-week regular season schedule begins tonight with four games involving area teams. The opening week continues Friday with a full slate of games.

This year, all football-playing schools in Ohio will be eligible to compete in the playoffs, which begin Oct. 9. Schools eliminated from the playoffs or that choose not to enter the tournament will have the option to schedule additional regular-season contests through Nov. 14, with a maximum of 10 regular-season games permitted.

Schools choosing not to play football this fall will have an opportunity to do so — minus a state tournament — in the spring of 2021. Approximately 60 football-playing schools statewide will not begin their season this weekend.

No one is more familiar with the unpredictable nature of this year’s season than Warren G. Harding coach Steve Arnold.

Vindicator file photo / R. Michael Semple Poland’s Jake Rutana pushes a Girard defender aside during a game last season. The Bulldogs have high expectations in 2020 after reaching a state semifinal last year.

Less than a month ago, Arnold and his staff were preparing for their scheduled season opener against Canton McKinley. When the regular-season schedules were altered in early August, McKinley dropped Harding in favor of Federal League-foe Massillon Jackson.

Harding picked up Cleveland Heights as its opener, but earlier this week that game was scrapped at the request of Cleveland Heights school officials. Harding will now open the season Saturday at home against Cleveland Benedictine.

“We were actually on the field (Monday) preparing for Cleveland Heights when (WGH athletic director) Bill Nicholson comes up to me and says, ‘I have bad news,’ ” Arnold said. “It’s crazy, but this is life in 2020.

“Throughout my coaching tenure, I have always preached about the importance of being able to adapt to any situation. Never has that been more important than this year. We’ve had to adapt to changing situations the entire off-season, and that will carry over all throughout the season.”

After scheduling Benedictine Monday evening, Arnold said he quickly searched for game film of the Bengals and spoke to coaches who are familiar with the team.

“You always want to have as much information about your opponent as possible, you want to be totally prepared, and here we are having this thrown at us at the last minute,” Arnold said. “But, Benedictine is in the same situation. It’s not like one team benefits from this. It is what it is.”

Still, Arnold admits that the chaos he experienced in August makes him wonder about the near future.

“As a staff, we’ve always prepared as though there would be a season,” Arnold said. “In that regard, it’s been business as usual. But internally I’m always wondering ‘what’s next.’ I’m always nervous that this can all come to a screeching halt.”

On Friday, John Bayuk will begin his head coaching career when his Struthers Wildcats travel to Hubbard. Ironically, Bayuk graduated from Hubbard, where he played for the Eagles.

“It’s pretty ironic, it’s going to be strange to be there as a visitor, to use the visitor’s locker room,” Bayuk said. “The weirdest part is that the Hubbard staff includes friends that I’ve played and coached with. In that regard it will be unique for me. But other than that, we’ll approach this just like any other game.”

Bayuk was hired in late January after former Struthers head coach Curt Kuntz left to join the Miami Dolphins staff. Bayuk noted that he enjoyed “about a month of normalcy until all heck broke loose.”

“When I got the job, my top priority was to recruit our hallways, to get our kids to buy into the program,” Bayuk said. “Well, we shut down in March and now all of a sudden I’m scrambling to just figure out how to approach the off-season workouts.

“The thing was, I am surrounded by veteran coaches, but I didn’t have anyone to turn to. I mean, no one has ever dealt with anything like this before.”

Despite the uncertainty, Struthers’ roster (grades nine through 12) includes 72 players — a number higher than recent years.

“We were forced to hold virtual workouts, there were so many changes, but through it all the kids were great,” Bayuk said. “Now, they’re just anxious to get on the field and face an opponent.”

Niles will kick off its season at home tonight against Northeast-8 foe Jefferson.

Niles coach Jim Parry knows that all eyes will be on Bo Rein Stadium tonight to see how things play out under “the new norm.” Lengthier timeouts, shorter halftime breaks, extra sanitation measures and reduced crowd sizes are among the changes implemented for the season.

“I think most coaches are going to tell you that the kids adapted to all of this craziness a lot better than we did,” Parry said. “Us coaches, we’re creatures of habit. We want to maintain a routine, and that was tough to do during the off-season.”

Stadiums all across Ohio are restricted to the lesser of 1,500 or 15 percent capacity. Niles has distributed 1,350 tickets for tonight’s game.

In terms of seating capacity, Niles’ Bo Rein Stadium is the third-largest stadium in the Mahoning Valley. Warren’s Mollenkopf Stadium and Austintown’s Greenwood Chevrolet Falcon Stadium will both be able to seat 1,500 fans this fall.

“We’re very fortunate in that we have a facility that will allow everyone with a vested interest to attend our games,” Parry said. “We’re taking every measure to make this a safe season for everyone involved. I think we’ll do everything right to make this work.”

Niles was one of about one dozen area schools that had its summer workouts temporarily disrupted by a positive COVID test. The Dragons were shut down for 10 days before returning to the practice field Aug. 19.

“Once we came back, it was as though our kids never missed a beat,” Parry said. “They are physically and mentally healthy and ready to go.

“I think once we take the field, it will provide some sense of much-needed normalcy for the whole community.”