Madison County Red Raiders

Reprinted from the Madison County Journal November 9, 2006 edition Column by Ben Munro As friend and colleague Zach Mitcham noted this week, it’s been a long time since Madison County’s football team has had a better record than Georgia. The Raiders are doing it again this year while Georgia isn’t. Nine weeks into the season, Madison County is 7-2 and knocking on the door of another state playoff berth. Enjoy it, relish it Raider fans. You’re experiencing the golden era of Madison County football. With all due respect to the Madison County teams of the early ‘80s which were the true ground-breakers of this program, the success the Raiders have sustained the last three years under Randell Owens is unprecedented. Madison County has never produced a trifecta of seasons like this. Each of the last three campaigns — the Raiders have won 20 games in that span — has presented a different challenge and, each year, these guys prove that they’re overachievers. Flash back to 2004 when people might have wondered if Madison County could actually keep its head above the 8-AAAA waters in its return to region football. What happened? The Raiders gave us an emphatic “yes” by managing a winning season in a region schedule for the first time in 13 years. And they came dang near close to blowing the lid off the program and qualifying for the postseason for the first time in a generation. OK, OK. Madison County proved it could win, but could it actually break this 22-year playoff hex that’s hung over the program like a cumulonimbus cloud. Oh yeah. The Raiders nearly went to the second round of the state playoffs in 2005, scaring the dog out of the Rome Wolves. Alright, alright. But can these guys actually win when after a host of seniors say goodbye? Again, Madison County is 7-2, only the fifth time that a Raider team has won at least seven games. The only questions remaining this year: Will the Raiders go back to the state playoffs? And will Madison County win past game 10 for the first time in 24 years? We’ll get the answer to that first question this weekend in Conyers where the Raiders and Salem play for a state postseason pass in this year’s new region playoff format. But the fact that the Raiders have had three-straight years where they’ve had a chance to play for the state playoffs shows that this is a new age for a program that struggled for so long. Remember, Madison County once lost 16 games in a row and the state playoffs seemed as far off as the rings of Saturn. Madison County was searching for anyone it could beat. Now you get the feeling that these guys could beat almost anybody on a given night. The Raiders almost did it to Dacula in September. They won’t be scared by Salem Friday. Like a coaching friend of mine in Northwest Georgia recently told me: “Things are changing at Madison County.” Georgia won’t win this weekend. Everything in this writer wants to say Madison County will. Ben Munro is a reporter for The Commerce News and The Madison County Journal.