News and Announcements
Madison County Vs. Franklin County
| TEAM | Madison Co. | Franklin Co. | |||||||||
| SCORE | 23 | 6 | |||||||||
| NUMBER OF RUSHING ATTEMPTS | 50 | 26 | |||||||||
| RUSHES - YARDAGE (NET) | 198 | 42 | |||||||||
| PASSING YARDAGE (NET) | 75 | 25 | |||||||||
| ATTEMPTED PASSES | 14 | 16 | |||||||||
| COMPLETED PASSES | 5 | 6 | |||||||||
| INTERCEPTIONS | 2 | 1 | |||||||||
| TOTAL OFFENSE - YARDS | 273 | 72 | |||||||||
| FIRST DOWNS | 18 | 7 | |||||||||
| FUMBLES | 4 | 4 | |||||||||
| RECVRD BY OPPONENT | 2 | 1 | |||||||||
| PENALTIES | 7 | 14 | |||||||||
| PENALTY YARDS | 51 | 76 | |||||||||
|
OFFENSIVE INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS |
|||||||||||
| RUSHING | ATT. | YDS | TD | RECEIVING | NO. | YDS | TD | ||||
| #5 Al Allen | 19 | 89 | 1 | #1 Ben Morris | 2 | 39 | 0 | ||||
| #7 Cello Latimer | 14 | 52 | 1 | # Al Allen | 3 | 36 | 0 | ||||
| #9 Spencer Baird | 12 | 42 | 1 | ||||||||
| #13 Jacob Owens | 1 | 4 | 0 | ||||||||
| #33 Stacy Mack | 3 | 6 | 0 | ||||||||
| #34 Claude Johnson | 1 | 5 | 0 | ||||||||
| Total | 50 | 198 | 3 | Total | 5 | 75 | 0 | ||||
| PUNTING | NO. | YDS | AVG | PASSING | COM | ATT | TD | YARDS | |||
| #38 J. Orr | 2 | 72 | 36 | # 9 Baird | 5 | 14 | 0 | 75 | |||
| NAME | Comp.% | 35.7% | INT: | 2 | |||||||
| KICKING | MADE | ATT. | NAME | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| #38 J. Orr | PAT | 1 | 2 | Comp.% | INT: | 0 | |||||
| FG | 0 | 0 | |||||||||
Reprinted from the Athens Banner-Herald, Friday, August 31, 2007 edition.
Franklin County at Madison County
When and where: 7:30 p.m. at Raider Field
2006 Records: Franklin County 5-6, Madison County 8-3
Radio: None
Key Players: Franklin County - CB Jerry Fortson (Jr., 6-foot-2, 180 pounds); OLB Ryan King (Sr., 5-10, 175); RB/S Jay Moon (Sr., 5-10, 165); QB/LB Cody Reel (Sr., 6-1, 175). Madison County - WR/S Aldreakis Allen (Jr., 6-0, 205); RB Cello Latimer (Sr., 5-7, 190); OT/DT Brent Russell (Sr., 6-2, 305); OG Brad Russell (Sr., 6-2, 310).
The inside slant: Each team's starting quarterbacks from last season are playing in college. Former Madison County quarterback Jarrod Owens is at the Coast Guard Academy and Franklin County's Kyle Harris is at Presbyterian. Both Spencer Baird and Jacob Owens likely will play for the Red Raiders, and Dashaun Merritt should start for the Lions. ... The Red Raiders won last year in a comeback 20-18 victory at Carnesville thanks to a pair of fourth-quarter touchdown passes by Jarrod Owens.
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 083107
PIGSKIN PREVIEW: Can Raiders Uphold New Legacy?
reprinted from The Madison County Journal August 30, 2007 Pigskin Preview
by Ben Munro
If this were a presidential term, Randell Owens and company would have quite an approval rating entering year four.
Madison County’s football program heads into the fall with three-straight winning seasons in region football and back-to-back appearances in the state playoffs in tow.
But with the ever-changing nature of high school football, success can be fleeting.
“That’s the thing about football, there’s no such thing as really getting there because you’re starting over every year,” head coach Randell Owens said.
With that in mind, Madison County hasn’t had to answer this many preseason questions since Owens’ first year in 2004 as they try to uphold the program’s winning ways.
The Raiders are in the midst of a transition year, replacing a three-year starter at quarterback and a bevy of receivers, linebackers and defensive backs.
“We have so many kids that are sophomores that are having to step up to the plate,” he said.
That’s where Owens hopes confidence fostered from 21 wins in the past three years will pay dividends in this fourth season. Only Dacula (30) and Salem (29) have won more games amongst region school in that span.
“The biggest asset we have going for us is that our kids are used to winning at this point,” Owens said. “They feel like they’re supposed to win.”
On that other hand, he hopes recent success hasn’t bred complacency.
While he knows the long hours it took to turn Madison County into a winner, he’s not quite sure his players—who don’t know what it’s like to have a losing season—realize that.
Sometimes kids tend to forget what got them there,” Owens said.
These Raiders have an arduous sub-region slate ahead of them, which includes games with Dacula, a 10-win team from last year, and a defending region champion Habersham Central. Then there’s Clarke Central, which has as much talent as anyone in the league.
But if Madison County works its way into the top four of the sub-region by week 10, it will earn the right to play for its third-consecutive Class AAAA playoff berth during the final week of the regular season.
And under Owens, the goal is always to get to the state playoffs.
“That won’t change any year,” Owens said.
Cello Latimer Grows Confident in the Backfield
Reprinted from the Athens Banner-Herald August 30, 2007 edition.
In his first three years of high school, Cello Latimer played a new position each year.As a freshman, it was running back. As a sophomore, he quarterbacked Madison County's junior varsity team. And as a junior, he played tight end.
Along the way, his coaching staff and a former captain bestowed upon him their utmost confidence.
But now that he's a senior and will play running back, he's the one brimming with confidence.
"I'm trying to go to college and I know I'm too small to play tight end," Latimer said. "My best shot is running back because that's what I've been playing since I started playing football. I really asked for that. When they put me back there, I felt like I was at home."
Not that Latimer was a stranger to consistent play at other positions.
As the junior varsity quarterback, Latimer led the JV team to a perfect season.
Not bad considering that weeks before the season began, the coaching staff had exhausted all of its options as to whom would quarterback the JV team.
"I said, 'Here's what we're going to do: Who's the best athlete in this class?" coach Randell Owens said. "The coaching staff said, 'Cello Latimer.' So I said, 'Cello is now the quarterback.' To make a long story short, the JV team went 7-0. It was the first time in Madison County history that a sub-varsity team went undefeated."
As a junior tight end, Latimer made one of the biggest plays of the season.
With a trip to the playoffs on the line, Latimer's 35-yard reception with less than a minute remaining in a 44-all game set up Jack Orr's game-winning field goal over Salem.
Randell Owens said his son and former quarterback Jarrod Owens realized before the play started that Salem was going to run an all-out blitz. Rather than throwing to one of his receivers, Jarrod Owens looked for Latimer.
"I asked Jarrod later why he gave it to Cello," Randell Owens said. "Jarrod said, 'It's a big play, gotta' have it, I'm going to get rocked and take one in the teeth. If I'm going to take one in the teeth then I'm going to throw it to the best player we've got. It's the fourth quarter, we need maturity and somebody that knows how important this game is. That was Cello.' "
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 083007
PIGSKIN PREVIEW: Raiders Still Seeking Respect in 2007
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.”
Seasons
Sponsors
