High School Football 2018 Set For Kickoff: Each Team Has Own Unique Look
MADISON- The 2018 high school football season kicks off Friday, off Aug. 24 with the four local teams Bob Jones, James Clemens, Madison Academy and Sparkman getting into action.
Bob Jones begins 2018 hosting Christian Brothers of Memphis, James Clemens will face No. 2 ranked Thompson in the Champion’s Challenge in Montgomery, Madison Academy travels to Chattanooga to face McCallie and Sparkman visits Athens for a controlled scrimmage against the Golden Eagles before officially opening the season schedule on the road against Hazel Green on Aug. 31.
Each squad has its own unique look at the latest campaign and are focused to reaching the goal set as early as the end of the 2017 season.
BOB JONES- “Goal Focused”
After a sour end to the 2017 season (7-4) with a loss in the first round of the Class 7A playoffs, the Patriots as a team have set their goal to go one more than a year ago. With a good amount of players returning in key positions including quarterback Caden Rose (Jr., ) and Jaydon Hill (Sr., 6-0, 172) at cornerback, the Pats can make a good run at a Region 4 title and further advancement in the post-season playoffs. The squad enters the new campaign with a No. 6 pre-season ranking.
“We’re all focused on getting past the first round of the playoffs this year and we have a good chance to do that as we have a good bunch of guys offensively and defensively,” said Colby Morrell, starting right guard on offense.
Kevin Rose heads into his tenth season as head coach and he has five starters returning off last year’s team on both offense and defense, as well as, the kicking game. “We have talented skilled players and a group of five up front on offense that should make for a good scoring offense and our defense will be keyed by our guys up front as a good defensive line can certainly hide a lot of mistakes and we have several who can contribute,” said Rose.
“We have a good group of players that go back to when they played at Discovery Middle School and this group will make for a good football team,” added Rose. “We were just one point away from making the second round of the playoffs last year against a very good opponent.
Rose said this year’s schedule is the toughest he’s had since he arrived at Bob Jones. The Patriots’ second game will be in the inaugural Freedom Bowl in Alpharetta, Ga. versus Mainland High of Daytona, Fla. The 4:00 p.m. kickoff will be held Aug. 31 and will be available live streaming via FloFootball.com.
JAMES CLEMENS- “QB Return”
High expectations are set at James Clemens as the team returns eight starters on both sides of the ball from a team that struggled with a 3-7 mark a season ago. The real excitement is the fact senior quarterback and Vanderbilt commit Jamil Muhammad (Sr., 6-1, 210) returns at quarterback after missing all of last season due to a knee injury.
“I’m so excited to have Jamil back in the lineup and having his backup and our starter from last year, sophomore Conner Cantrell (So., 5-10, 170), we definitely have tools to better on offense,” said Wade Waldrop beginning his sixth season as head coach for the Jets. “On defense our starting 11 are very good and we’ll need some young players to step up to give us much need depth.”
The defense will be led All-State and Vanderbilt commit Daevion Davis (Sr., 6-2, 305) at defensive line. “This is a team effort and looking back we definitely could have played in a lot more games than we did last season, but we’re going to bounce back,” said Davis.
“With the successful summer we had we’ve grown together as a team and we’ll be more dynamic offense this year,” said Muhammad with a hint of confidence.
“We’ll have to stay healthy due to the depth issues and if we do we can certainly challenge for the region 4 title, which is our goal,” said Waldrop of the Jets, which go into the season ranked No. 10 in Class 7A.
SPARKMAN- “Physical”
Taking a cue from the 1981 hit song by Olivia Newton-John, the Sparkman Senators “want to get physical.”
“What I’ve seen this summer and in our spring game physicality is coming this season,” said senior cornerback Dell Pettus. “We had a good season last year (7-4) and the players have a mindset that no one on our schedule can beat us.”
Leron White enters his second season as head coach and has simply turned around the mentality of not only the team, but the entire Sparkman community in believing the squad can win. He is dealing with a quarterback competition between sophomore Jacob Medlen and Brandon McNeal, but Medlen has the upper hand as, according to White, “Has been very well and learning our system, but both players have positives the other doesn’t have.”
MADISON ACADEMY- “Up Tempo”
Behind third year head coach Grant Reynolds, the Madison Academy Mustangs not only move up to Class 5A, the horses will also invade the new territory with a new up tempo offense where Reynolds expects his no-huddle offense to run 80-86 plays per outing.
“We have a quarterback who was a sophomore last year that got a lot more experience as did all of our returning players including seven each on offense and defense,” said Reynolds. “I think we’re in a good position going forward this year.”
The quarterback is Luke Nail (Jr., 6-4, 178) and he’ll have a front line looking to take care of business with the new tempo included. “Our offensive line is bigger and we’re pushing ourselves to be quicker that will make us better,” said left offense tackle and defensive tackle Tex Bailey (Sr., 6-5, 290). “Our team motto is ‘Be Legendary’ and our mindset on defense is just that, as we gave up just 14 points per game last season and we’ll need to step up and try to have the same intensity we had last year.”
“In practice we run play after play in five minutes and the up tempo has been a struggle, but we should be fine come game time,” said running back and linebacker Daniel Brent (Sr., 6-2, 180). “We had a bad taste after losing in round one of the playoffs last season and we’re looking forward to a new season. We take pride in our defense, but there are three aspects of the game and we need to play well in all three areas.”
Despite a 7-4 record a season ago and move up in classification, the Mustangs hit the season opener at the home of the Chattanooga Choo Choo ranked No. 13.
