I hope everyone enjoyed their Turkey Day weekend. I know I did. Always fun to mix family, food, football and basketball into a long weekend. By the way, did you know that Tebow played his last home game this past Saturday and Tiger Woods had an automobile accident early Friday morning? You would have thought ol' Tiger died with the way they were covering the story on Friday and the same thing with Tebow on Saturday. What will CBS do next year with no Tebow? Some wonder if they will cancel college football because to hear the announcers and analyst on CBS and ESPN it seems it was never played prior to Tebow coming. Just wondering!
This is the final week of the 2009 high school football season. The final pairings are set with a few surprises! I must admit Russellville in 5A is a surprise but judging by their playoff scores, this team may be peaking at the right time. Russellville destroyed McAdory last Friday night 40-7 following the previous week’s 42-14 beating of Cullman. I saw Russellville against Athens earlier in the year and thought they were good but not great. In fact, Athen’s played them tough and could have won the game. I have said this before but it’s worth repeating, anything can happen in the playoffs and a team playing with confidence is a coach’s dream.
Let see how Ol’ Bully’s picks to represent the north did last week.
Hoover made the show as they beat Gadsden City last Friday setting up a Prattville/Hoover final. How many times in the last few years have we seen these two teams in the 6A finals? I was correct in 4A as Cherokee County beat Deshler 37-20. I listened to a lot of this game on the internet and it was close until CC pulled ahead by 3 scores in the 4th. I may be wrong but I think this was actually the 4A State Championship game as I think either would have won the final game. In the 2A, Clay County won setting up a meeting this week with Reeltown. I was also correct with the 1A Hackleburg pick as they beat R.A. Hubbard in a close one, 10-7 last Friday and now take on Brantly in the finals. So, I ended up with 4 out of 6 in the finals for 67% but who is counting.
Bully’s final pick’s.
1A – Hackleburg (14-0) vs Brantly (13-1). I think this one could go either way but take Brantly due to their strength of schedule and their better football tradition. Hackleburg was 9-2 last year but the big stage is new to them having never won a state championship in football. Brantly has had only one losing season since 1991 and won a few blue maps back in the late 90’s.
2A - Reeltown (13-1) vs Clay County (13-1). Hard not to go with tradition in this one. Clay County seems to always make it to the semi’s or finals whether it is 2A or 3A and has not had a losing season since 1982. Six state championships since the early 90’s this is high school football tradition at its finest!
3A – Piedmont (12-2) vs Cordova (13-1). A lot of folks might have thought Cordova would have missed their great running back from last year (Simon who signed with Ol’ Miss) but apparently they haven’t. Cordova’s only loss was to 5A R8 Champ, Hartselle and that was 13-22 game. Piedmont beat Leeds last week to revenge one of its two loses of the year. I know Piedmont is playing well but can’t see them beating Cordova.
4A – Cherokee County (14-0) vs Jackson (13-1). Jackson comes into this game as a runner up in 4A R1 losing to region winner UMS Wright 51-24 in week 6. The closest CC came to losing was in week 2 when they won by 11. CC should win this game, maybe big but remember; they went undefeated last year and got blown out in the finals to UMS Wright.
5A – Russellville (12-2) vs Demopolis (11-3). Demopolis finished 3rd in 5A R3 and certainly knows how to win the close games since all but one of their playoff games has been decided by 8 points or less. Russellville seems to be getting better and better. I thought there was a chance they could lose in the first round but they are on the verge of their first state championship since 1968. Hard not to get on their bandwagon now.
6A – Hoover (13-1) vs Prattville (12-2). Since 2000, these two teams have won all but one 6A state championship. Prattville comes into this game going for its 4th in a row while Hoover has won five coming in 2000, 2002 thru 2005. Prattville has beaten Hoover in two of the previous three title games so these two meeting again is really no surprise although some thought Auburn would beat Prattville last week. Safe pick is to go with Prattville but this game is an opportunity for Hoover to re-establish themselves in the post Propst era. I think Hoover will pull this one off.
Historically north teams don’t fair as well in football state championships compared to basketball so I’m going out on a limb picking a north team in four of the six games. Check me out to see how good (or bad) I am.
I saw several high school basketball games over the week including the Sportsmed Shootout at the VBCC. I will say, right now, Butler looks to be the class of our area with Lee and Sparkman both showing potential to be very good. Butler is well coached (there's a shocker), good guards, a great player in Lacey, and team quickness. Sparkman has a lot of quickness and height and Lee has a marquee player in Langford. Butler won the Sportsmed, beating Lee by 1 in the finals. A couple of lower classification teams played well in this tourney. In 3A, keep an eye on Greene County. Good size and athleticism will make them a favorite to compete in 3A. Dora is extremely well coached. Not very tall but plays extremely well and could also make noise in 4A.
Short blog this week but that is all I can offer. Until next time……
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