Rye's football game at Mount Vernon kicks off Thursday, Sept. 24, at 6 p.m. at Memorial Field, moved up two days from Saturday.

The game was originally set for a Friday night, then shifted to Saturday, Sept. 26, before being locked in for Thursday, according to MyRye.com. No reason for the change has been announced. Steve Feeney, known as the voice of Garnet football, urged fans to note the switch from Saturday to Thursday in his game preview.

The Garnets enter the game at 2-1 after bouncing back from their first regular-season loss in nearly three years. A 35-28 defeat at Clarkstown South on Sept. 10 snapped a 15-game win streak. Rye answered with a 51-0 shutout of Eastchester on Sept. 18 at Nugent Stadium, where senior quarterback Charlie Brady threw four first-half touchdown passes and the offense rushed for three more scores.

Head coach Dino Garr, in his 51st season and holding 375 career wins in New York high school football, told MyRye.com after the Sept. 10 loss to Clarkstown South that the team needed to "regroup and tie up all our loose ends on offense, defense, penalties, and tackling."

Thursday's matchup carries some historical weight. The modern Mount Vernon Knights and the Garnets have never met on the gridiron, but Rye played Mount Vernon's predecessor program, Edison Tech, regularly in the 1930s and 1940s. The combined historical series stands at 13-5-2 in Rye's favor, according to Feeney's game preview on MyRye.com.

Rye went 14-0 last season and won its fifth state championship. Brady is one of four returning senior captains, alongside Jagger Fenton, Benji Kaplan and Luke Denvir. In a Rye Record preview published Sept. 4, Brady set the tone before the opener: "Every team we play this year will want to beat a state champion … We're used to that in Rye."

After Mount Vernon, the Garnets travel to Somers on Oct. 2 at 6:30 p.m., host Nyack on Oct. 9 at 7 p.m. and host archrival Harrison on Saturday, Oct. 17, at 1:30 p.m. at Nugent Stadium.