A weekly look at high school sports in the state of Alabama for the past week, a look ahead to what is on the horizon and a little 80s motivation. This is an opinion piece.
It would be hard to open the season with a higher profile matchup than Thompson faces this afternoon in the Freedom Bowl.
Mark Freeman’s Warriors, the reigning three-time state 7A champs and the consensus No. 1 team in Alabama, will take on a talent-heavy Buford, Ga., team in Alpharetta.
RELATED: Week 1 HS predictions
RELATED: Thursday’s final scores
It’s an early kickoff, 4 p.m. CST.
Buford boasts Alabama senior RB commit Justice Haynes along with three of the top junior prospects in Georgia in safety KJ Bolden (No. 1), EDGE Eddrick Houston (No. 3) and athlete KingJoseph Edwards (No. 7).
The Wolves, also a three-time reigning champ, are ranked No. 1 in Georgia and No. 3 nationally, according to the High School Football America Top 25. Thompson is ranked No. 17 nationally.
The Warriors should be stout on defense with Clemson commit Peter Woods up front and Alabama commit Tony Mitchell in the secondary. Offensively, Freeman’s team will have a lot of new starters, but I would guess that fuels Freeman, an offensive guru, even more. QB Zach Sims has experience, having spelled Conner Harrell each of the last two seasons when Harrell was injured.
It’s a true matchup of the best in Alabama vs. the best in Georgia.
It won’t affect either team’s chances of winning a fourth-straight state title later this fall, but it will tell us a lot regionally and nationally.
Honoring the heroes
Ashville High was set to honor veterans during its opener against St. Clair County Thursday night at Kin Logan Stadium.
The Bulldogs were to wear Olive Green uniforms as an homage to a specific U.S. Army unit during the Vietnam War and a special decal that mirrored the unit patch of the 129th Assault Helicopter Company, 1st Flight Platoon. This unit served throughout Vietnam as “the Bulldogs,” according to a post on the Ashville Athletics site.
Well Done, Ashville.
A prep football coverage shoutout or 2
In my column earlier this week, I mentioned that this week marks the start of Year 31 for me in the sports journalism business. It’s been awesome.
I also wanted to congratulate some other friends. John Vella, one of AL.com’s Mobile-area correspondents, enters his 20th year of covering high school football with us. John’s first game was Baker vs. McGill-Toolen on Sept. 5, 2003. “It was a 12-7 slugfest,” he said. Ironically, he’ll be covering the Hornets again this week as they travel to Theodore on Friday night. Thanks for your coverage, John.
Also, in the Mobile area, we’ve been blessed to have a game each week televised on Friday night. This week’s game is Saraland vs. Daphne, and it can be seen on both WJTC-UTV 44 and WPMI NBC 15. My friends Jim Cox and Dan Brennan will once again be in the booth this year. It’s Year No. 22 for those guys together. Thanks for what you guys do as well.
Bubba at his best
Former McGill-Toolen baseball/football star Bubba Thompson has been impressive since his major league baseball debut with the Texas Rangers earlier this month.
Despite hitting just .238 in his first 12 games, Bubba has 5 RBIs and already has 4 stolen bases. The 24-year-old will get better and better the more he plays. As far as the high school athletes I’ve covered in the last decade, Bubba ranks pretty high up there among the most humble.
Hope he has a long career in the bigs.
Pretty amazing to think about the talent McGill had in several different sports when Thompson was there: Jaylen Tolbert, Marlon Williams, Carlton Martial, Larry Rembert just to name a few.
As publicized already, Thompson and Tolbert – best friends – are now playing in the same neighborhood. Tolbert is with the Dallas Cowboys. Hope there are some good fishing spots in Texas for those guys.
Closing out the survey
Sunday will mark the final part of our six-week series revolving around the anonymous survey we did with our high school head football coaches this year.
I hope you’ve enjoyed it. You can catch up on any you missed on AL.com.
This Sunday we asked, “What is the biggest challenge facing high school coaches today?”
A lot of revealing answers and quotes in this story. Hope you will look for it this Sunday.
Thought for the Day
“We can’t choose how other people respond, but we can choose our own attitudes and actions.”
80s quote of the week
“Just a small-town girl, living in a lonely world.
She took the midnight train going anywhere.”
– Don’t stop Believin, Journey (1981)
(Don’t try to tell me you aren’t singing as you read those lyrics!)
Ben Thomas is the high school sportswriter at AL.com. He has been named one of the 50 legends of the Alabama Sports Writers Association. Follow him on twitter at @BenThomasPreps or email him at bthomas@al.com. His weekly column is posted each Friday on AL.com. He can be heard weekly on “Inside High School Sports” on SportsTalk 99.5 FM in Mobile or on the free IHeart Radio App at 2 p.m. Wednesdays.
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