BUTLER TWP — The Quad County Conference football opener has arrived for Butler — which has more questions than answers right now.

The Golden Tornado (0-2) entertain Mount Lebanon (1-1) at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Art Bernardi Stadium. It will be Butler's home opener, the team coming off stinging losses of 42-7 at North Hills and 58-13 at Baldwin.

In both games, the Tornado surrendered multiple touchdowns in the first quarter and were shut out in the first half. Oddly enough, Butler has yet to surrender a point in the second half.

“Our immediate goal goes even farther back than playing a competitive first quarter,” Butler coach Eric Christy said. “We're going all the way back to concentrating on one play at a time, even one practice play at a time.

“We need to break things down and concentrate on one facet of the game, then go from there.”

The Tornado got a pair of touchdowns last week out of sophomore running back Byron Manchester. He scored two TDs in the junior varsity game the week before that.

“Byron will get a lot more looks this week. We'll see what he can do,” Christy said. “Basically, we've told the kids that every starting position is open right now. Show what you've got in practice, that you deserve to be there.

“Ideally, we'd like to go three-deep at every position, have a senior, junior and sophomore ready for every spot.”

Even the captain roles are open this week.

“They may end up being the same guys, they may end up being sophomores,” Christy said. “Whoever steps up and leads this week will be the captains.”

Things don't get any easier for Butler this week. The visiting Blue Devils are coming off a 43-29 win over Canon-McMillan after losing a 31-8 decision to Gateway in their opener.

Butler is 9-14-1 all-time against Mount Lebanon. The teams have not played since the Tornado's last playoff game — a 31-7 loss at Mount Lebanon in 2012 — and Butler has not defeated the Blue Devils since a 13-6 win under coach Tim Nunes in 1989.

“Our offense has been inconsistent,” Blue Devils coach Mike Melnyk said. “In the second half last week, we started putting things together.

“Our goal is to continue getting better. We feel like we play against a standard, not necessarily the opposition.”

Seth Morgan, a 6-foot-3, 170-pound quarterback, has thrown for 536 yards and four touchdowns in two games. Lucas Decaro has 11 catches for 150 yards.

Decaro had 43 catches for 756 yards last season, but played in the shadow of Aidan Cane, who had 1,700 receiving yards as a senior in 2017.

The Blue Devils averaged 30.7 points per game last season. Michael Palmer and Sam Rolfsen anchor their running game.

“They return seven starters, have a lot of experienced kids and a lot of talent,” Christy said. “We have some size, but no experience.

“This is what we're going to be facing week to week. Last week, we went to a more basic package, tried to slow things down, and it didn't work. This week, we're going to game-plan, we're going for it.

“We want to win the football game,” Christy added.

While Mount Lebanon does return seven starters on both sides of the ball, Melnyk said he still has a young team.

“We only have 12 seniors,” he said. “We haven't played a consistent game yet. We need to cut down on turnovers and tackle better.

“Good teams keep getting better and better. That's what we want.”

And the Blue Devils won't be taking Butler lightly.

“Absolutely not. That will not happen,” Melnyk promised. “It's my job to see to that.”