Bob Jones, James Clemens look for strong starts

Bob Jones Nick Holman (48) and Montrell Cole (30) make a tackle against Enterprise
(RECORD PHOTO/JOHN PARKES)

MADISON- The wait is over for football fans in Madison as Bob Jones and James Clemens kick off the season Friday night.

Bob Jones opens at home against Northridge of Tuscaloosa, a team that beat the Patriots 40-30 to open last season.

“They are extremely excited to get the season underway,” Bob Jones head coach Kevin Rose said of his team. “We’ve been waiting nine months for this. This is why the players do all the training, lift weights and run sprints. Everybody is 0-0 and has a chance for the state championship.”

Rose’s team is coming off a 23-21 win over Enterprise last week in a jamboree game.

“They are where I want them to be for a week 1 game,” he said. “We want to get better every week. We are as game ready as we can be and ready to play.”

The two teams are much different than the ones that squared off in Tuscaloosa last season. That Northridge team featured Bo Scarbrough, an Alabama running back commitment who is no longer with the team. Scarbrough torched a young Bob Jones defense for 214 yards and 3 touchdowns that night.

“Obviously we had trouble defending Bo last year but it wasn’t just Bo, we were very young defensively last year and we’ve come a long way. I’m confident our defense will play extremely well,” Rose said.

Bob Jones is returning eight players who started on defense last season.

Rose said that he does not expect any dropoff in the talent level Northridge will bring to Madison. Kickoff is 7 p.m. at Madison City Schools Stadium.

Across town, the James Clemens Jets are brimming with confidence after dominating Grissom in a jamboree game. Now they face Johnson, a 5A playoff team last year. Johnson beat James Clemens 20-7 to open last season.

To pull out a win in new coach Wade Waldrop’s first game the Jets will need big games from quarterback Heath Burchfield and running back Maceo Booker.

“There were a lot of things in the passing game that looked good,” Waldrop said of last weeks play against Grissom. “I have a lot of confidence in Heath. He made some big throws. He knows the offense. He knows what Coach Woodfin wants and what I want.”

Waldrop stressed “that was a preseason game and win or lose it doesn’t count in your record.”

“We’ve had good practices this week. I hope we execute the way we did last week and are prepared to play a four quarter game.”

After four weeks of intense practice, the Jets will be well conditioned and acclimated to the heat.

The Jets and their fans would like to end the losing streak right where it is; 10 games.  Central-Hayneville has the longest current losing streak in Alabama high school football at 51 games.

Waldrop sounds a lot like a certain college coach in Alabama who has won two straight national championships.

“We don’t talk about winning and losing. We talk about getting better every day. No matter who we play, if our level of execution meets our expectation then the wins are going to take care of themselves. If it does that’s great. If it doesn’t then we are going to work to improve it,” Waldrop said.

The game will kickoff at 7 p.m. at Louis Crews Stadium.

Bob Jones and James Clemens will play each other next week on September 6.