Football Season Ready to Be Kicked Off at SMC

Football fans across the country have been cheering the end of the NFL lockout. But on a local level, there's reason to celebrate too: Santa Monica College's football season is only a little more than a month away. The SMC Corsairs will open their 2011 schedule at home against Compton at 1 p.m. on Sept. 3. 

Four of the Corsairs' first six games are off campus. They have back-to-back road games twice, first at East Los Angeles and Santa Ana on Sept. 10 and 17, then at Santa Barbara and Los Angeles Southwest on Oct. 8 and 15.  

All five home games are in the afternoon. SMC hosts San Bernardino Valley on Sept. 24, Los Angeles Pierce on Oct. 22 and Los Angeles Valley on Oct. 29. The Corsairs end their regular season with a 1 p.m. game at home Nov. 5 against West Los Angeles, which handed SMC a 36-14 defeat to end the season last year in Culver City.

Santa Monica has a bye Oct. 1 (between games four and five). Its last road game will be a 7 p.m. kickoff on Nov. 15 at Glendale, which finished at the bottom of the Pacific Conference last season.

SMC Head Coach Gifford Lindheim and his squad will try to rebound from a 4-6 season in which the Corsairs had a 2-4 conference record and finished sixth out of seven teams. The combined 2010 record of Santa Monica's 10 opponents was 49 wins and 52 losses.

In addition to their six conference games in 2011, the Corsairs will take on San Bernardino Valley, East Los Angeles and Compton from the Mountain Conference, as well as Santa Ana from the East Conference. 

Click here to view the full 2011 Santa Monica College football schedule.