Area teams ready for football practice to start
As the calendar turns to August that means high school football is just around the corner. Teams across the Madison area are wrapping up summer workouts and coaches are making last minute preparations for the start of fall practice on Monday, August 6.
Madison Academy head football coach Eric Cohu
With the start of school pushed back to August 20, coaches have an extra two weeks to work with players that they had not been getting in years past. That means two-a-day practices which had all but become extinct are back for players and coaches.
Madison Academy’s offseason morning weight lifting sessions ends Monday and the Mustangs will hold a 3-day conditioning camp at their practice field starting Tuesday.
Expectations are sky high at Madison Academy after last year’s team got hot in the playoffs and rolled all the way to the Class 3A state championship game in Tuscaloosa.
“I’m hoping that the success we had last year will catapult us to get off to a good start this season,” said Madison Academy head coach Eric Cohu. “We were left with a feeling of ’man we were close’, so our guys are hungry for more of that success. The good news is we don’t open the season against North Jackson but we’re playing a schedule as tough as any 4A school in North Alabama.”
Last season, the Mustangs opened 0-2 before reeling off 12 straight wins. Cohu will have to replace three key seniors who have moved on to play college football. At quarterback Justin Wimberly steps in for Hunter Olive. Wimberly, a senior, has been impressive in 7-on-7 passing camps and quarterbacked his team to wins over 6A teams Bob Jones and Spain Park as Madison Academy won the Bob Jones Elite 7-on-7 Passing Camp earlier this summer.
Wimberly, who was backup quarterback last year, has the team’s top two receivers back from last year in Chandler Trach and Nick Haas.
“Justin is very wise in his approach to the game. Knows what he can and can’t do. He is a tough, hard working kid and we’re going to ask him to lead the team,” said Cohu.
“Depth and injuries are going to be an issue for us,” Cohu added.
Academy also lost two players to graduation who played both ways at linebacker and running back in Marcus Sease and Khyle Jackson.
One player Cohu is counting on is sophomore Kerryon Johnson who burst on the scene during the playoff run with a 130 yard game against Lauderdale County and 137 against Rogers with 5 touchdowns in the two games to get unranked Academy to Tuscaloosa.
Those performances at tailback and on defense at safety put Johnson on major colleges recruiting radar. He has visited Alabama and Florida State this summer but has not been able to participate in the summer camps top recruits normally compete in.
Johnson had off-season surgery to fix a broken bone in his hand and he has been withheld from any football activity but Cohu that he should be ready to go when practice starts.
“He just got released for football activity. He was a freshman last year and literally grew 3 inches in five months. He went from 5-foot-9, 160 pounds to 6-foot, 170 and now he is 6-foot-1, 180 pounds. He is playing safety for us and offensively we would love to see him emerge as one of the state’s top players.”
“He has worked hard and is in shape. How will the lack of competition since the spring game affect him? That is a question I’ve got. It could make him hungrier or a little bit rusty, time will tell,” Cohu said.
Academy returns experience in the offensive and defensive lines with Cole Swearingen and Frank Williams anchoring the line.
“Blocking is going to be a key to our success because with Kerryon we have to create space for him and our receivers have to block as well as the interior line,” Cohu said.
Madison Academy opens the season at Tanner on August 30 before two straight region games at home against Lauderdale County and Clements. They will compete in Class 3A, Region 8 with Colbert County, Deshler, Elkmont, West Morgan, and Westminster.
