Madison County Red Raiders

It looks like it is going to be another tough season for the Madison County Red Raider football team.

Head coach Randell Owens considers the forthcoming season as the toughest schedule he has seen since coaching at Madison County. The straight region schedule throws the Red Raiders directly into the thick of things against region newcomer Flowery Branch in the first game, Aug. 27.

With only the Hart County scrimmage on Aug. 13 to sort out any kinks, Madison County will have to adapt fast to take on the Falcons, who made it to the Final Four last season in the class AAA playoffs.

“You take Monroe Area off the schedule and you add one of the toughest teams in the state to the schedule and the rest stays the same,” Owens said. “That means you have one of the toughest schedules in school history.”

Things aren’t absolutely bad for the Red Raiders, in spite of graduating a strong experienced starting lineup, there are plenty of fresh faces fighting for positions as well as some seasoned players who step into their roles as upperclassmen.

According to Owens, the main thing that Madison County has lost coming into this season is experience. Last year’s graduating class had built up a lot of time together on the field which allowed the Red Raiders to play a lot of option offense.

"We have had to backup a little bit in our teaching and develop a learning curve,” he said. “You start from where [the payers] are, their experience and their comfort zone.”

Part of this back to basics approach, will mean that the Red Raiders will be playing more of a short game, focusing on ball control with the quarterback working as the game manager.

“We have a large menu, and we pull things off the shelf that correspond to our players’ talents,” said Owens. “Option remains part of our offense, but it might not be as much of a feature as it was last year.”

This past week, the team held voluntary double session practices. Starting on Monday, Madison County begins one-a-day practices dressed out. Then coming up on Friday, Aug. 6, the Red Raiders hold a controlled scrimmage at Raider Field.

The next two weeks are extremely important for the Red Raiders, as Owens and his staff begin to form the starting roster. There are plenty of tryouts as players battle for position.

“We are going to introduce something that we haven’t truly had for about six years – a true tight end,” Owens said. “
We have been more of a spread team and not really utilizing a tight end, if we need one we moved a linebacker over there. Now we actually have some tight end type people and there is a three-way battle for the position.”

Following the upcoming Hart County scrimmage on Aug. 13, the Madison County coaching staff will use film from the game to iron out the wrinkles from the starting roster before charging into the season.

The 10 game season is going to be tough as the Red Raiders get primed to improve over the 5-5, 2009 record.

"This year is probably better than last year,” Owens said, “As far as a group of boys that get along well with each other, they really represent our school well taking coaching well saying ‘yes and no, sir.’ They are a good group of kids. They give a good effort and have a good work ethic.”

With the final countdown starting before the Red Raiders return under the lights, the anticipation is high to see how Madison County will stack up in another tough gridiron schedule