After two straight home games, the No. 3-ranked T.R. Miller Tigers will hit the road and travel to Mobile to face the Cottage Hill Warriors.
The Tigers and the Warriors are complete opposite teams as T.R. Miller enters the game with an overall record of 5-0 and 3-0 in region play while Cottage Hill comes into the game with T.R. Miller with an 0-5 overall record and an 0-3 region record.
The Tigers of T.R. Miller improve to 5-0 this past Friday after they took down the Clarke County Bulldogs.
As for the game with Clarke County, Tiger head coach Jamie Riggs said it was good to get the win.
“I was pleased with the way we responded to them physically because they are a real physical team,” Riggs said. “I was really pleased about that. We certainly made some plays early in the game to help us get some early points. I was pleased with that and we are still doing some good things in the kicking game. We had a great punt to back them up one time and they kick short to us some times and we fielded the ball and got it back. We had some good punt returns that got the ball close for us. The kicking game has been real important for us and I hope it continues to be that way.”
Riggs said he also thought his team did a good job of stopping Clarke County’s run in the first half, but was not pleased how things went in the second half.
“We stopped them in the first half, but I was disappointed in the second half because we didn’t play with the same intensity,” Riggs said. “I didn’t think we ran to the ball well in the second half. I thought that was an issue. The only good thing I saw was when they scored, we responded with a score. That was good. We have to learn to play the whole game, but if we don’t, we are going to have a hard time winning games in the second half of the season.”
As for this week’s game with Cottage Hill, last year, T.R. Miller defeated Cottage Hill 55-3 to get a homecoming win. Last week, Cottage hill lost to Mobile Christian 43-0.
So far this season, Cottage Hill has been outscored 168-20.
“Cottage Hill is better than they were a year ago,” Riggs said. “They are a little bigger and more physical. They have had difficulty scoring points and I really think we need to improve on some things and get better and go down there and play the way we need to play. It always bothers you that their record of having not won a game worries you about how we are going to perceive them. They will win a game or two this year, but hopefully it will not be this Friday night.”
Riggs said through the midpoint of the season, it is good to be 5-0.
“We have been a little slow coming around on some things,” Riggs said. “I will say our kicking game has really helped us and we have done some good things with that. We have done some good covering at time and have done a good job of catching the ball and had some good returns. That has been a plus for us. I have been a little disappointed in the way we have blocked the first half of the season. I thought we would have come on a little faster than we have. I still have hope to improve some of that in the second half of the season. As far as defensively, we have played really well at times against the run and then at times during the last couple of weeks, we have had periods where we have not done well at times. Overall, we have done well though.
Riggs said his team has ran the ball more in the first half of the season this year.
“We have not thrown the ball as much as we usually have in the past during the first half of the season,” Riggs said. “We have made some pretty big plays when we have thrown it though. If we throw it for 100-150 yards a week, and we have done that, and we make some big plays out of it, then that is great. The day will come when we have to throw it a little bit more, but right now we have done a good job of taking advantage of that.”
Game time is set for 7 p.m. at Cottage Hill.