Greeneville travels to Claiborne on Friday for a heads up battle for the first-ever Blue Ridge Athletic Conference championship to highlight the final night of the regular season across the state.

Chuckey-Doak hosts neighbor and rival South Greene in what will surely be an emotion-filled game following the deaths of two students this week, and North Greene goes in search of its first win of the season at Hancock County.

West Greene has already completed its 10-game regular season schedule and has this week off to prepare for a potential playoff berth.

Many teams across the state hope to play well Friday to lock up a playoff berth. With the TSSAA's new postseason setup where the three regular season classifications get split into six for the playoffs, some coaches still don't even know if they are in or not.

The TSSAA is scheduled to announce the playoff selections and pairings on Saturday.

As it stands right now, the TSSAA has both Greeneville (6-3, 5-0) and Claiborne (8-1, 5-0) in as Class 4A qualifiers with the seeding to be determined by the outcome of Friday's game. Grainger (2-7, 2-3) may only qualify as a wild card.

West Greene (7-3, 3-3) and Cumberland Gap (4-5, 2-3) are both listed as automatic qualifiers in Class 3A. South Greene (4-5, 1-4) and Chuckey-Doak (2-7, 0-5) may only qualify as a wild card.

Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. on Friday.

Greeneville travels to Claiborne for a heads up showdown for the conference title on Friday.

"We are going to play a good team and have to go to their place to do it. There is a lot on the line for both teams," said GHS coach Caine Ballard.

Both the Devils and Bulldogs are the only two teams in the conference without a league loss, and it will be a battle of two high powered offenses.

The Devils are second in the conference in scoring, averaging 38.9 points per game. The Bulldogs are not far behind with 34 points per game.

Greeneville leads the league in offense, averaging 357.4 points per game. And again, Claiborne is not far off that mark with 353.1 yards per contest.

The Bulldogs have a slight advantage in scoring defense and total defense, but that likely won't matter come Friday night when some of the Blue Ridge Conference's top athletes go toe-to-toe.

"It could be (a high scoring game)," Ballard said. "I hope it is on our end for sure. They have a great running back and a big, strong offensive line and a good quarterback, too. They have some weapons. They can do some things."

Claiborne's David Fuson leads the conference in rushing with 1,453 yards.

Greeneville's B.J. Spradlin and Trey Anderson don't have nearly the total number of yards, but they haven't been called upon as much. Spradlin has missed most of the last month because of injury, and Anderson has seen little to no action in the second half of any of the Devils' conference games.

The Devils do mix up their offense much more than Claiborne. Fuson carried the ball 36 times for 300 yards in the Bulldogs' win last week over South Greene. The Devils put the ball in the air.

Wes Quarles has thrown for more than 1,300 yards and 16 touchdowns for Greeneville. Rob Wright has 33 catches for 11 touchdowns.

Although turnovers haven't been a major problem for the Devils this year -- Quarles has only four interceptions -- they will have to be on guard this week. Claiborne's Cody Malone and Josh Roberts lead the conference with five picks each. Claiborne's Aaron Noe leads the league with four fumble recoveries.

"In a big game, turnovers and special teams make the difference," Ballard said. "We've been preaching that since day one. Hopefully, we will take care of it."

Whenever South Greene and Chuckey-Doak play, it's always an emotion-charged game between the two neighbors.

This year, the mood will be a bit more somber following the deaths of two Chuckey-Doak students this week.

Chuckey-Doak coach Ben Murphy said it's been a trying week at the school.

"It's the last thing on everybody's minds," Murphy said. "Our hearts go out to the families. It's been rough. It seems like practice is the only time we've had some normalcy."

While Chuckey-Doak and South Greene are the closest of rivals, the two schools are also the closest of neighbors with family and friends intermixed at both schools.

The Black Knight community's grief is shared by the Rebels.

"We were looking forward to it until all the things that happened at Chuckey-Doak this week," said South Greene coach Shawn Jones. "We hate it for their entire school."

Although it is the final game of the regular season and neither team has exactly had the year it had hoped for, Jones knows it won't be an easy contest.

"It will be tough. It's going to a dangerous game," Jones said. "Coach Murphy does a great job over there, and their kids are going to be fired up with everything that's been going on. We think Chuckey-Doak is a good team anyway, and this will add a little fuel to the fire for them."

Murphy just hopes that a few hours of football against South Greene can help the Chuckey-Doak students and community start the healing process.

"It's a big game no matter what," Murphy said. "Last year at their place we played them really tough. Hopefully this year, we can ask the kids for two and half hours of focus and enjoying being teenagers and playing hard. Maybe we can forget about the situation for a little while."

North Greene travels to Hancock County on Friday night where the Huskies hope to come away with their first win of the year.

The Huskies have had two weeks to prepare for Hancock County (1-8, 0-4), and assistant coach Barry Carter thinks North Greene will be ready.

"We have prepared pretty good for them, looked at them pretty hard," he said. "We actually went down to watch them play Friday night at Midway. They have a big bunch of kids. They are not blessed with speed, but they've got a lot of size. I'm sure they will come out and try to pound on us little bit."

The Huskies are going into the game with pride on the line, trying not to go winless for the second straight year. Carter said he hopes that will be a big factor in helping North Greene rise to the occasion.

"We are still focused, but it is hard right now," Carter said. "It takes a special individual with a lot of character to stay focused when things are not going real well. This is when winners step up and take pride in getting the job done. No matter what the record is, we've still got a game on the schedule."