Northside (2-1) at Ware County (0-2)
Last meeting: 2016 – Eagles 48, Gators 7
Series history: 3-2 in favor of Ware County
“It’s going to be a tough, tough ballgame … We’ve either knocked each other out of the playoffs over the last several years, and I guess that’s a good way to develop a rivalry. This year we’ve been able to work in a regular-season game, and they’re in a different classification now, so it worked out. I just think it’s good in high school football when you can get two quality programs to match up against each other. It’s good for our fans – both schools – and it’s good for high school football.
“Just watching them, they’re 0-2, but they’re 0-2 against teams: one we put out in the third round of the state playoffs last year, and the other made it to the third round as well. So, it’s not like they’re just playing some run-of-the-mill teams.
“Just watching them on video, they definitely moved the ball against both of those schools, and put up some points, and could just as easily be 2-0 right now.
“They’ve gone to a little more of a spread-type deal. Still running basically the same type plays they’ve run out of the Wing-T … But branched it out a little bit more, spread it out a little more, but still running basically the same type stuff …
“Defensively, they still go somewhere between a 3-4 and a 4-3 defense. They’ll walk those rovers up, a lot like they have in the past. And they’ve always got those two linebackers that’ll hit you and run around and make a lot of plays. They have those edge defensive linemen that are very athletic. That can run around your tackles and make plays.
“They’ll look a lot like us. They’ll really run to the ball and be a physical defense, and it’s going to be a challenge for us know where they’re going to be, because they do do a lot of running around.”
– Northside Head Coach Kevin Kinsler
Warner Robins (4-0) at West Laurens (2-2)
Last meeting 2016 – Demons 10, Raiders 6
Series history: 1-0 in favor of Warner Robins
“The played us really tough last year, and we expect they’ll play us tough this year. They’ve got a really good defensive team. They’re doing some things really well on offense here recently … just doing a really good job of getting the ball to their athletes on offense.
“And getting back to defense, they’ve got a lot of athletes on defense. They fly around. They’re a 3-4 scheme and just do a really good job of stopping the run. They’re going to keep those guys tight to the box and make you attack outside in the numbers and in the perimeter game. And hopefully we can do that early and then get in the middle late.”
– Warner Robins Head Coach Mike Chastain
