There are no more summer workouts or summer practices – it’s time to strap on the helmets and play some football. The Charles Henderson Trojans and Pike County Bulldogs renew their annual rivalry this evening in Brundidge.

The Trojans and Bulldogs have been practicing for nearly a month in hopes of improving enough to make another trip to the postseason. First things first, the two teams are ready to hit someone else.

“We are certainly ready to go,” said Trojan head coach Brad McCoy. “We’ve had a great offseason. We had a really good spring training where we played Early County and were able to come out of that game with a lot of information. We had a really good summer; kids got stronger. We figured out a lot of question marks about our positions that we needed to feel.”

“We are getting the opportunity to hit somebody else,” said Bulldogs head coach Fred Holland. “We had a good three weeks of beating up on each other. We like to play someone different, hit someone a little different than us.”

The Trojans knocked off the Bulldogs 41-0 in last year’s contest and won by 21 the year before. This time around, the Bulldogs hope not only to stay with the 5A Trojans, but also see how far along their young players are heading into the season.

“We have a lot of young guys,” Holland said. “There are a lot of new players. We’re trying to find something out about our team, see how well we perform. The guys have worked really hard; we are just looking forward to how we play in the game. It’s a big game for both of us so it will be an exciting time.”
It’s a big game for both teams, but it’s one that won’t show up in the record book at the end of the season. Both teams will pull out all the stops when it comes to trying to win the game, but they also want to see as many of their players hit the field for some needed experience.

“We also hope to get a lot of kids reps because we have to make sure we have depth for the season and for our region games,” McCoy said. “That is our hope, but you never know how these games turn out.”

The Trojans enter the season with two quarterbacks that have potential to see the playing field. Both DQ Toney and Pooka Jones will see the field against the Bulldogs this evening.

“That is the plan,” McCoy said. “DQ will play some receiver and he will play some quarterback. I don’t know if we will go back-and-forth alternating series, but we feel like we’ll have multiple quarterbacks getting snaps at some point.”

Holland and his staff will treat this game as both a regular season game and jamboree.

“It will be a little of both,” Holland said. “We are just going to see some of the things that we are capable of doing. Just trying to figure what we are really good at and some of the things that we need to work on. We are still going to treat it as a full game situation, but we are eager to see how well we perform. Trying to see our progress on offense, defense and special teams.”

All the coaches may treat the game as a Jamboree, but McCoy believes once the ball is kicked, the notion that this game doesn’t count goes out the window.

“You can’t tell anybody in that stadium on Friday night that that game didn’t count,” McCoy said. “We all know it doesn’t count on the records, but we don’t script this thing out like the ones are going to play in the first half and the JV is going to play in the second.  We are playing to win the ballgame just like Pike County is playing to win the ballgame.”

Game is scheduled to kickoff of at 7 p.m. from Bulldogs Stadium in Brundidge.