The Statesboro Blue Devils have only made one trip to Brooklet for a football game in the school’s history and that was a scrimmage game nine years ago.
On Friday Statesboro and Southeast Bulloch meet at Fred Shaver Field again after going down to the wire last year before the Blue Devils pulled out a 12-7 victory in the Erk Russell Classic.
Both teams are in the same boat after last week's rain and flooding forced the county to cancel schools for the week, which also meant a week without practice. The week off also meant neither team was able to scrimmage which is what both coaches feel hurt them most going into the season opener.
“We really wanted to be able to evaluate our kids against another team,” said Statesboro coach Matt Dobson. “Missing a whole week of practice isn’t ideal either, especially with trying to get reps for our younger players. The big thing is Southeast Bulloch had to deal with the same thing so we just have to get things together this week and make the best of it.”
Southeast Bulloch head coach Jared Zito has a few more starters back and a little more experience, but still would have liked to have had the scrimmage to iron out some wrinkles.
“The evaluation we missed is tough, but also just going through everything you do in a first game was tough to miss,” Zito said. “Things like making sure the kick team and punt team are ready and know when to head out. You also miss being able to see who is ready for playing under the lights on a Friday night, and who may not be ready. Statesboro has the same challenge, so you just hope everything we go over in practice carries over.”
Both teams will be breaking in new quarterbacks and counting on their retuning players up front to help the run game.
“We have a lot of returning players on the offensive and defensive lines,” Dobson said. “We return a good running back with T.Y. Chambers who came on strong at the end of last season. We have some young defensive backs who are talented but haven’t played a lot of minutes. We have a lot of guys who have put in work and we are excited to see what they can do.”
For Zito it’s much the same story as the Jackets return a lot of size and experience up front. He will also be counting on his depth to help pull them through.
“I’ve said all off season we feel good with who we have up front on both sides of the ball,” Zito said. “Our leading returning rusher is Quentin Reed and we have a lot of depth at running back to help him out. On defense our front seven which includes our linebackers is really strong. We like our defensive backs as well, they just aren’t quite as experienced.”
As for the game itself the Jackets will be looking for their first football victory against the Blue Devils in what Zito says can’t be a true rivalry until they win a game.
“It’s an important game because it’s game one, and we would like to make it into a rivalry,” Zito said. “We feel like it will truly become a rivalry when we win a game. It’s our only non-region game and it would mean so much for us to come away with a win. I think if we come out and play a good football game and take care of the small things, the big things will take care of themselves.”
Dobson understands this is a non-region game as well and doesn’t think his team is under any more pressure to win than when they play anyone else.
“No one is going to put more pressure on our team than we do to ourselves to perform at a high level,” Dobson said. “These guys have put in the work during the off season and we are excited to watch them go play. I love our team and their togetherness and I can’t wait to watch them compete.”
