Birmingham Community Charter High School’s Varsity Football head coach Jim Rose reclines at his desk in his office where he discusses for the upcoming homecoming game against Taft Charter High School on Oct. 26.

“I hope we beat Taft badly because that’s our rival, which is known to us ‘TOW’: Team Out West. So we don’t really acknowledge that they’re even Taft,” Rose said.

This year’s homecoming game will be different as the BCCHS football team will be playing at Taft, the first time ever in the team’s history where they will not be playing on their own field for their homecoming game. The BCCHS field has been under construction for new turf, which means they haven’t played a home game all season.

Both schools have been longtime rivals but BCCHS has beaten Taft in the last seven games they have played against each other.

“Taft, you know we don’t like them very much and you know we’ve been rivals for the last two decades or so,” Rose said. “ Usually the league championship has been decided between Birmingham and Taft. Now it seems to be more of a Birmingham vs. El Camino thing, so you know we’ve won the last seven games against Taft, in the last seven years.”

Birmingham currently sits at 4-2, tied with Cleveland at the top of their division. They have four games coming up before the homecoming game against Taft.

The game will follow with the homecoming dance on Oct. 27 at 7 p.m. in the main gym.

“It’s against Taft so I mean like that’s cool to just like beat them again,” senior and Varsity defensive line player Kyle Matson said. “ I’m looking forward to winning and enjoying my homecoming dance the next day.”