In the past nine seasons, Norfolk Catholic has lost once in the regular season to a team other than Class C-1 rival Pierce.

The defending state champion Knights will have to work the next two seasons to maintain that record.

Wahoo and Wahoo Neumann are new regular-season opponents for Norfolk Catholic in the statewide football schedules the Nebraska School Activities Association drew up for the 2012 and 2013 seasons.

"Our schedule is a pretty good challenge," Norfolk Catholic coach Jeff Bellar said. "I'm fine with it."

Neither Wahoo team was on Bellar's priority list of opponents for non-district games. He said he listed fellow Mid-State Conference schools first and got Boone Central/Newman Grove and Madison. The other non-district game is the season opener against Columbus Lakeview.

Another traditional rival, Battle Creek, dropped into Class C-2. The Knights also are in a four-team district, meaning that they needed five non-district teams instead of four to complete an eight-game schedule.

"I'm not surprised by anything anymore," Bellar said. "Hopefully we have a type of year where we remain healthy. This will be more challenging if we have the injuries we had last year. We'll see how we can develop some depth."

Pierce got a game with Boys Town, whose coach, Kevin Kush, had the Bluejays as a preferred opponent. The Cowboys return to Class C-1 after two years in Class B. Boys Town also plays the two Wahoo schools and Lincoln Christian.

Class A's smallest school for the next two years, Lincoln Pius X, has non-district games against Kearney, North Platte, Omaha Northwest and Lincoln North Star. The Thunderbolts will play every other Lincoln school except Lincoln High — Lincoln Northeast is the only school that will play the other six Lincoln teams.

Defending state champion Lincoln Southeast will play three perennial Metro Conference powers in the first four weeks. Millard West will be the season opener for the Knights, with Millard South and Omaha Creighton Prep back-to-back before Southeast begins district play. All three Metro teams will travel to Lincoln in 2012 and get return games at home in 2013.

Metro Conference teams will play 15 games outside the league, same as the past two years.

Those games are Bellevue East-Lincoln North Star, Bellevue East-North Platte, Millard North-Kearney, Millard South-Lincoln Southeast, Millard West-Southeast, Omaha Bryan-Fremont, Bryan-Lincoln High, Omaha Burke-Lincoln Northeast, Prep-Southeast, Omaha North-Lincoln Southwest, Omaha Northwest-Lincoln High, Northwest-Pius X, Omaha Westside-Fremont, Westside-Grand Island and Papillion-La Vista against Lincoln East.

Bellevue East replaces Papillion-La Vista as the team that has North Platte, the westernmost school in Class A, on its nine-game schedule.

Bellevue East, Omaha Bryan, Omaha Northwest and Omaha Westside each has two non-district games outside the Metro. Bellevue West, Omaha Benson, Omaha Central, Omaha South and Papillion-La Vista South do not play outside the league.

Nate Neuhaus, a first-year assistant director with the NSAA, said all schools received full schedules — nine games in Classes A and B, eight games for Classes C-1, C-2, Eight Man-1 and Eight Man-2. Six-man schedules will be released later by the sponsoring coaches' association.

"It was an extensive process I don't think anybody can understand until they go through it,'' he said.

Neuhaus said the NSAA tried to balance home and road assignments, both for the entire schedule and for district games only, for all teams and ended up with only four teams getting a 5-3 split instead of the preferred 4-4. It also succeeded in avoiding teams playing three consecutive games at home or on the road and in giving teams at least one of their preferred non-district games.

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