By Steve Carter
TIFTON — The Tift County Blue Devils fell 23-20 last Friday to a Coffee High Trojans in a Region 1-AAAAA football contest. It was the second straight week that Coffee had knocked off the state’s top-ranked team as the Trojans had defeated Colquitt the Friday before the Tift contest.
Even with the tough opponent last week, Tift head coach Jay Walls believes his team will meet a team even more on a roll tonight when the Devils travel to Warner Robins to face the Houston County Bears in a rare Thursday night encounter.
“Houston is the hot team in the region,” Walls said.
Warner Robins currently leads Region 1-AAAAA with a 2-0 record. Right behind the Demons are the Bears and Coffee at 2-1. Tift and Lowndes come up next at 1-1. Those teams are followed by the Colquitt County Packers at 1-2 and Valdosta at 0-3.
Statewide in the Class AAAAA Associated Press football poll, Coffee is fourth, Tift is sixth and Houston is 10th.
After opening the region slate with a 10-9 loss to Warner Robins, the Bears have bounced back to garner the state ranking with a 31-14 victory over Lowndes and a 25-14 win against Colquitt.
The Bears began to roll when Martez King came back from an injury.
King was the starting quarterback when he left, but came back as a wingback due to the play of new signal caller Jeff Thompson.
“Jeff Thompson is doing a good job for us at quarterback,” Houston coach Doug Johnson said. “We felt like it was the best thing for our football team to move Martez to wingback. We are getting better production from our wingbacks with him there, and this way we can get him and Jeff on the field at the same time.”
Walls thinks it was a good move for the Bears.
“It looks like they have found their identity and they have come up with two really big wins against Lowndes and Colquitt,” Walls said.
King has responded with 261 yards rushing on 43 carries from his new spot. He has given the Bears a viable third rushing option behind Eric O’Neal and D.J. Dodson. O’Neal has 770 yards rushing on 123 carries this year, while Dodson has put up 542 yards on 98 totes. O’Neal also had 13 rushing touchdowns.
“Offensively they are burning up the yards running the football,” Walls said. “They do a great job of spreading the ball around. Their running backs, their fullbacks and their wingbacks are all tough.”
Through the air, Thompson has completed 13-of-31 passes for 186 yards. He has two touchdown passes and two interceptions. King has completed 14-of-21 passes for 227 yards and two touchdowns.
Tight end Ben Collins has eight catches for 154 yards to lead the receivers. Craig Presley, 139 yards, and O’Neal, 49 yards, have seven catches each.
Defensively, Houston is “big up front,” Walls said.
“They have got a defensive tackle that looks like he weighs about 280 pounds, No. 91 (Brandon Craig),” said Walls.
According to the Houston roster, Craig is actually 6-foot-2 and weighs 302.
“No. 44 (Princeton Dean) is their best D-lineman, we think,” Walls said. “He is a fast guy, a physical guy.”
Dean, 6-foot, 225, has 36 total tackles on the year. He also has 16 tackles for loss yardage, three sacks, three passes broken up, two forced fumbles and one fumble recovery.
Walls also praised defensive ends Dexter Holman (6-foot-2, 203) and Roddy Nixon (6-foot-1, 185) along the Houston defensive line.
“They are solid up front,” Walls said.
Besides the Houston players, the Tift County coach also had praise for Johnson and his staff.
“You can tell they are well coached,” said Walls. “They follow their assignments well.”
While he is wary of the Bears, one thing Walls is not worried about is his team having to play a Thursday night game.
“You have one less day to prepare so it is a factor,” Walls said. “But it is the same for both teams, so I think we are equal. They have had to do the same thing that we have had to do, play on Friday and then turn around preparing on Monday and be ready to go on Thursday.”
As Tift enters the crucial battle, Walls also said his team “was pretty healthy.
“That’s going to be very important in this region race.”
Game time is 7:30 p.m. at Warner Robins’ McConnell-Talbert Stadium.
