Coming off their second defeat of the season, the T.R. Miller Tiger football team will welcome the Clarke County High School Bulldogs to Brewton this week for homecoming.
T.R. Miller comes into the region game with the Bulldogs with a 3-2 overall record and are 2-1 in region play.
Tiger head coach Jamie Riggs said the 35-10 loss to Andalusia last Friday night was an important game for the Bulldogs.
“I give credit to Andalusia,” Riggs said. “That game was important to them and they prepared well for it. They played terrific. I just did not do a good job of getting our team prepared for what were in store for. I think we though it was going to be more like last year and it was not. They were a completely different football team and the credit goes to them. We have got to learn a few things and recover from this. Over the next month, we have some important region games to play and we have to learn from this and be great the rest of the year.”
One of those “important region games” Riggs alluded to begins this week with Clarke County. Clarke County comes to Brewton for homecoming this week with a 2-3 overall record and they are 1-2 in region play.
“Well, No. 1, Clarke County always plays us tough every year,” Riggs said. “We have played tough games and close games with them every year. This year, they look to me to be certainly one of the better teams in the region. They have lost some close games, but they do a really outstanding job of playing defense and really are a good defensive team. They are very physical and have some tough folks that are hard to run the ball on. Some of those guys, we played against last year. Some of their better players are back from last year as well.”
Riggs said the Bulldog offense is a spread offense.
“The quarterback, No. 11 CorDerrio Hasewood, just does an outstanding job for them,” Riggs said. “He has done a great job of running and throwing the ball for them. He averages over 100 yards a game running the ball. Certainly he is allusive and you have to contain him as a runner and a passer. Another thing that impresses me with them is on offense, they have a lot of running backs that run the ball hard. Even though they are in the spread, the concept when they are in the shotgun and have the receivers spread out, is the running backs run really hard. So we have to get ready to tackle them.”
Riggs said his team will have their work cut out for them.
“They run the ball really efficiently to the outside and get the ball into the hands of their people who can do something with it,” Riggs said. “They have a good concept of what they are doing. We have to get prepared and we will have to play the best game we have played all year to beat them. Also, at homecoming, we have to get focused.”
Riggs said preparing for a homecoming game can be difficult.
“Anytime you have other things going on, it can be difficult,” he said. “That makes things more difficult. As a football team, you have to be able to put those things away and focus on the important part. Certainly as adults, we don’t do that well all the time and as 16 and 17-year-olds, we don’t do that well at times either. It certainly is a challenge, but down through the years we have played some tough teams on homecoming and they have been one of the best games we have played on homecoming. So, hopefully we can put all that away and play the best game we have played.”
Game time is set for 7 p.m. at Brewton Municipal Stadium with other festivities planned throughout the day.