Announcement
PIGSKIN PREVIEW: Raiders Still Seeking Respect in 2007
Posted by Randell Owens on
Aug 29 2007
at
05:00PM PDT
reprinted from The Madison County Journal August 30 Pigskin Preview
by Ben Munro
When the word “respect” was thrown around in a preseason interview nearly two weeks ago—as in, the Raiders now have it—Raider head Coach Randell Owens offered his own take on the matter.
While the fourth-year coach feels the program has done plenty to earn it in the last three years, Owens isn’t so sure the Raiders’ peers in the region and area are all that impressed with Madison County’s recent football resume—the 21 wins or the back-to-back state playoff patches on the lettermen jackets.
“There’s still an attitude out there that ‘wer’re better than you,” Owen said, seated in his office with a plaque commerating two-straight playoff trips hanging above his head.
A lack of respect? Even though only two region schools have won more the past three seasons than Madison County?
Owens said that people’s memories go back much further than that, back to much less successful days (Madison County won just 33 games the entire decade of the 90s.).
And it’s those memories that he says several are opting to attach to Madison County football in the here and now.
Basically, the Raiders are in a fight against history.
“You’re trying to overcome 40 years of history and the people who are looking at it,” Owens said.
Granted, Madison County’s football history hasn’t inspired high school football novels, but the last three years have been, at the very commendable.
Take last year for example.
The Raiders won eight games last year and made it back to the state playoffs again. But when it comes to preseason water cooler talk amongst coaches about Region 8-AAAA, the Raiders apparently get the snub.
“All you hear about is people talking about, ‘well it’s between Dacula and Habersham Central. Clarke Central might be a dark horse entering the mix for the playoff out of our region,’” Owens said. “Some people say, ‘throw Cedar Shoals and Salem in there for the fourth spot.’”
“At this point, I don’t see how you can say that with as much parity as we’ve got in this region,” he said.
This is a region for the unexpected, Owens says.
The coach likes to point out that Heritage only won two games last year, but one of those was against Clarke Central, a playoff team. That same Clarke Central team beat Cedar Shoals twice to keep a good Jaguar outfit—out of the round of 32 in the state playoffs.
So with what seems to be an “any given Friday,” region, you’d expect to hear the Raiders to be at least an honorable mention in the preseason talk.
Not really, said Owens.
“You don’t hear anybody mention Madison County in the region,” Owens said. “You don’t hear any of the coaches talking about us even being a contender for a winning season or the playoffs.”
Not that this really upsets Owens, who along with his players and staff have proven folks wrong many times in his first three seasons in Danielsville.
In fact, it almost seems like the coach likes having the doubters as he and his crew are again out to change people’s minds about Madison County football in 2007.
“Here we go with the underdog role again. That’s OK.”
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