Playing football during Thanksgiving week has become a bit of a tradition in recent years for Iowa High School.

The Yellow Jackets will play the day after Thanksgiving for a third consecutive season. And for the third time, it will take a tough road trip if they want to move on. No. 5 Iowa travels to play No. 4 Franklin Parish in the Non-Select Division II quarterfinals at 7 p.m. Friday.

Iowa (11-1) has had mixed success on the road in the playoffs the last two years. In 2022 it won at Leesville 31-14, the school’s lone quarterfinal win, and lost 45-21 to North DeSoto in 2023. But the experience gained is one thing head coach Tommy Johns said he hopes will carry Iowa further in the playoffs.

“I think that’s the good thing, this group’s experienced and they’ve been in the situation before,” Johns said. “Hopefully that can be an advantage for us this week.

“They’ve done a good job of just taking it one week at a time. They don’t get caught up in a lot of the outside noise and stuff like that.”

One area they will need to rely on is the defensive side experience. Iowa has allowed 18.1 points a game this season and won 10 consecutive games, but faces a high-scoring Patriots (10-1) offense (43.8 ppg) led by quarterback Dezyrian Ellis (111-188-7, 2,012 yards, 30 TDs). Other weapons include running back Daniel Neal (1,048 yds., 11 TDs) and receiver Chauncy White (40 rec., 871 yds., 10 TDs).

“Probably the biggest team we’ve played since Little Cypress (-Mauriceville, Texas, Sept. 13), as far as just the pure size across the board up front on both sides,” Johns said. “They’re very big and they’re physical, and they can run.

“They’ve got a really, really good quarterback. They’ve got two or three really good receivers. We’ve got our hands full, and we’ve got to go up there.”

But Iowa has been in tough situations before. It is the lone team to hold Leesville running back Xavier Ford (2,999 yds., 45 TDs) under 100 yards this season.

“They score a lot of points and they like to go, and they have a little tempo with it,” Johns said of the Patriots. “So hopefully we can slow the game down a little bit and just try to grind this thing out.”

Iowa will counter with its multiple offense weapons. Jonathan Walker Jr., J’vien Adams, Cohen Charles, and Jeremiah Bushnell have combined for 55 rushing and receiving touchdowns. Bushnell is Iowa’s top receiver with 47 receptions for 868 yards and 10 touchdowns, while Adams leads the ground game with 1,169 yards and 12 touchdowns. Iowa will face a defense that is allowing 17.2 points a game, led by ends Chris Addison (16 tackles for loss, 8.5 sacks) and Tavon Bell (11.5 TFL).

“Defensively they’ve got two ends on defense,” Johns said. “They’re both 6-4.”

“One of them’s probably about 250, 260, and the other one’s probably around 230. I mean, they’ve got a couple of defensive backs that are really good. So, I mean, all around, there’s really not many weaknesses.”