The hay, as they say, is in the barn for Good Hope’s and Vinemont’s football programs.

They’ve survived fall camp. They’ve soaked in the feel of gameday with respective jamborees. And now, all that’s left is a county showdown that’ll officially jumpstart the season for both squads.

Kickoff is set for Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Raiders’ James W. Shabel Stadium.

Good Hope will get going versus the Eagles before diving headfirst into a string of seven straight foes that made the playoffs in 2015.

“It’s the first game of the year, and it’s against a county opponent. A quality opponent at that,” said Alan Scott, who’s entering his second fall with the Raiders. “Vinemont has great players and is well-coached, so a win would go a long way to helping — definitely in our region schedule — make things a little better.”

Class 4A Good Hope tuned up for its debut with a jamboree this past Thursday night at 3A Susan Moore. The Raiders won 19-12 after leading 13-6 through almost three quarters of varsity competition.

Matthew Dixon accounted for the pair of varsity scores with touchdown totes of 68 and 8 yards, respectively. Hudson Leverett cracked the end zone for the junior varsity unit on a carry covering about 20 yards.

“Definitely happy to come out of there on top,” Scott said. “But definitely a lot of things that we’ve got to execute better against Vinemont.”

Lineman Austin McDonald created some excitement with a clean strip on defense that he ripped and ran with for a big gain. Mason Moniz joined the fun with an interception.

There were 10 total turnovers on the evening. Six were coughed up by Susan Moore and four by the visitors.

“It’s hard to get into a rhythm when you’re doing things like that, for either team,” Scott said. “I was glad it was just a jamboree.”

Good Hope’s defense locked down after giving up a long touchdown through the air on the first play from scrimmage. Susan Moore is generally all run, so the Raiders were surprised and took a bad angle.

Scott was pleased with the way his squad responded, though.

“Other than that, I felt like our defense played pretty solid,” he said. “We gave up more than we would’ve liked to on big plays, bursts I’d say of maybe eight to 10 yards. But we never did allow ’em to punch it on in, so that was a positive.”

Down the road a piece, Vinemont took on East Lawrence in a rained-soaked jamboree on Friday night.

The Eagles, behind two touchdowns from quarterback Garrett Boland, collected a 14-12 victory in three quarters before weather stopped any further action on the field.

Boland, whose scores came on 1- and 8-yard scampers, said he was pretty pleased with the way the exhibition shook out — all things considered.

“Offensively, I thought we played well,” the senior said. “We had a 15-play drive and an 11-play drive against them. It was wet out there, and that’s tough. Defensively, we’ve still got a lot to improve on.”

Vinemont will have exactly four days to make the necessary adjustments before hitting the road to Good Hope.

A county rivalry to kick off the regular season?

Boland and Co. couldn’t be more excited.

“We’re looking forward to showing people what we’re made of,” he said. “We didn’t really do that Friday because of the rain. We want to show that we’ve improved. Good Hope is a stout team, and they’ll be tough. We’re all looking forward to it.”