TIFTON — He may only weigh 165 pounds, but Michael Tamburo has been a giant for the North Gwinnett High Bulldogs football team this season.

The sophomore quarterback has led the Bulldogs to a school record 11 wins against only one loss. Tamburo also has North Gwinnett in the third round of the state playoffs for the first time in school history.

The Bulldogs will meet the Tift County Blue Devils in the third round of the state Class AAAAA playoffs Friday at Brodie Field in Tifton. Game time is set for 8 p.m.

With his accomplishments, Tamburo also has a fan club in an unexpected place, the Blue Devil locker room.

Tift head coach Jay Walls has spent the week studying the North Gwinnett quarterback on film.

“He’s a great quarterback, because he can run the football, he’s very elusive, and he can throw it,” Walls said. “He is going to make something happen, he is a playmaker.”

Tamburo has passed for 1,946 yards, completing 172-of-250 of his throws. He has 20 touchdown passes and has only been intercepted five times.

Also, as Walls stated, Tamburo has put up impressive rushing totals. The sophomore has run for 414 yards on 128 carries and has scored 11 touchdowns.

His favorite target has been senior Ryan McDaniel, who has caught a Gwinnett County record 68 passes for 924 yards and 13 touchdowns.

“He is one of the best receivers in the state,” Walls said.

The leading rusher for the Bulldogs is senior Evan Gilles, who has 676 yards on 127 carries. He has scored nine touchdowns and has averaged 5.3 yards per carry.

“He looks like he is a tough runner,” Walls said. “He is a physical kid that runs very hard.”

Along the offensive front, North Gwinnett, “looks like they are good-sized. They are not huge, they are not little, but they have very good size,” Walls said.

“They execute and play very well. They are good run blockers and good pass blockers.”

Walls feels like the play of the line has been a big key to the Bulldogs’ success this season.

“Etowah got a little pressure on him (Tamburo) early in the game and he did throw an interception,” Walls said. “Looking at film, Norcross was able to get some pressure on him and he did throw some interceptions. But, he is a tough kid and even if he makes a mistake, on the next play he is still playing hard.”

North Gwinnett defeated Etowah 31-7 in the second round of the playoffs, while the Norcross game saw the Bulldogs lose for the only time in 2006, 31-10.

Walls feels like putting pressure on Tamburo could be one of the keys Friday night.

“We are going to have to do a good job of defending the run,” said Walls. “And when I say run, I mean the quarterback. He does a good job of running the football. We have got to make sure we contain him running-wise and then in the passing game, the first part of a pass defense is getting a good rush and we are going to have to do that Friday night.

“Our defensive backs have got to play very sound, they can’t give up any huge plays.”

On the defensive side of the ball, North Gwinnett also has a lot of weapons, Walls stated.

“Defensively, they are a very good team,” Walls said. “When you look at their 11 guys on defense, they don’t have a weak player anywhere. Everybody plays very well.

“Their defensive line has good size. You can tell they are tough, physical kids.”

The Tift County coach had a lot of praise for the North Gwinnett linebacking corps.

“The three inside linebackers are very good players,” said Walls. “No. 96 (Jasper Williams) is a big athlete that runs well. The middle linebacker, No. 44 (Chris Knox), is a tough kid that plays very hard. Their Will linebacker, No. 34 (Eloka Anyaorah) is a fast kid, they like to blitz him and he is a big playmaker.”

Knox leads the team with 108 total tackles. Anyaorah has 81 total stops and Williams has been in on 63 total tackles. The trio has a combined 37 and 1/2 tackles for loss yardage and a combined 16 and 1/2 sacks.

“Secondary-wise they do a great job. Their rovers play very hard and run well,” said Walls. “Their secondary does a good job in pass coverage and run support.”

The Bulldog defense will be going against a Tift offense that had 433 yards of total offense in Tift’s 38-23 second round playoff victory over Union Grove.

That included a 20-for-27 performance from quarterback Sean Baxley that saw him throw for 333 yards and four touchdowns on passes of 39, 42, 66 and 45 yards.

“Last week Union Grove did a good job of defending the run,” Walls said. “We had to throw the football and it was just one of those games where we came up with big plays and sometimes you have got to do that. We don’t want to rely on the big plays to win ball games, but if you can come up with the big play or two or three, you will take them.

“But we are going to have to be able to run the ball Friday night, we can’t rely on the big bomb to stay in the ball game.”

The Tift-North Gwinnett winner will advance to the state semifinals on Dec. 9 to face the winner of the Roswell-Houston County winner. That game will be at 6 p.m. and will be followed at 9 by the winners of the Norcross-Warner Robins and Stephenson-Peachtree Ridge contests.