Madison County Red Raiders

SUMMER FOOTBALL

• Weight Lifting Competition, Monday, 6 pm, Madison County Middle School Gym

Expect a gym full of Raiders gunning for the title of strongest Raider to get a little gung-ho.

Or at least that’s what Madison County football coaches hope for on Monday when the team is divided into three weight classes and players are pitted against each other in the Raiders’ annual lifting competition.

“We’ll be disappointed if it’s not,” Madison County head football coach Randell Owens said.

Players’ mettle will be tested in three lifts—bench press, parallel squats and power cling—as Monday’s competition offer a glimpse of the Raiders’ summer strides in the weight room.

In today’s ultra-competitive high school football climate, a large part of a football program’s success or failure can hinge on the quality of the weight training program it offers its players.

“If your kids aren’t buying into the weight program and they’re not lifting, you’re pretty much dead in the water,” Owens said.

The Raider coach can remember a time—mainly his high school football days in the mid-to-early 70s in Alabama—when not everybody focused so stringently on the weight room.

“There was a time when you lifted weights hard, it gave you an edge over your opponent, because not everybody did it,” he said.

Of course, the ones that did it well—working both upper body and lower body equally—were winning championships, he said.  Everybody eventually caught on and one would be hard-pressed now to find a sparse crowd in a high school weight room these days.

“It’s kind of escalated,” Owens said.  “It’s kind of like nuclear proliferation.”

Months of the Raiders’ voluntary summer weight training culminate with Monday’s lifting competition.

Owens noted that the competition obviously motivates the strongest players, but the weaker ones, too.

“It’s a point of embarrassment for some of the weak folks,” Owens said.  “What it does, is it puts it out there in front of everybody, that ‘I’ve got to get stronger,”  It puts it out there where you can’t hide from it.  Everybody can see it.”

Owens noted that having an audience enhances the competitive nature of the event.  The adrenaline gets flowing and lifters tend to pick up a few extra pounds in the heat of the moment.

Owens said coaches like to know the players who thrive in those situations.

“Your real competitors, they’ll give five or 10 more pounds a lot of times just because of the adrenaline rush of doing it in front of a crowd,” Owens said.

Owens noted that juniors and seniors are usually “chomping at the bit” this time of year to out-muscle their teammates in this annual throw-down.

Some he said are already strategizing.

“You’ve got some guys gunning for each other, so to speak,” Owens said.  “They’re wanting to out-lift each other.”

Reprinted from the Madison County Journal Thursday, July 19,, 2007 edition

 SUMMER FOOTBALL 

Seven-on-Seven Competitions Help Hone Defensive Skills 

by BEN MUNRO 

By nature—and in name—the summer passing league season would seem inherently offensive-oriented.

But don’t underestimate how beneficial these sessions are for a defense, Raider head coach Randell Owens said.

With no danger of a blitz in passing league rules, Madison County’s defense operates at a disadvantage each Tuesday when the Raiders meet for these seven-on-seven, one-hand-touch games with area teams.  In order to stop opponents from moving the ball, it must practice the fundamentals of pass coverage and work together as a unit.

“It forces the defense to have to play great coverage,” Owens explained.

Owens counts these Tuesday sessions as time well-spent during the downtime in the summer months.  After all, the summer is one of the most opportune times for a team to work on pass coverage since teams can’t really work on run defense until they don pads in preseason practice, he noted.

“I think a lot of people really underestimate how important this is,” he said.  “We get a lot of work on defense as far as the linebackers and secondary in the fundamentals of pass coverage.”

Owens said the Raider defense has stood some pretty good tests thus far this summer, going up against Oconee County, Oglethorpe County and Social Circle.  He noted that Oconee County, particularly, has posed a challenge with a strong-armed quarterback and a pass scheme.

And this is a year that Madison County’s defensive charges could benefit from being tested as much as possible before summer workouts start.  Depth and lack of experience for this year’s Raider secondary are two concerns for Madison County coaches heading into Fall.

But with these Tuesday passing league sessions, the Raiders have extra prep time before the first whistle blows in two-a-day practice. 

“It gives you a lot of time to really work on those things, those areas,” Owens said.l

NOTES:  Owens acknowledges that not everyone is a fan of summer passing league.  Some, he said, feel football games are won in the trenches while others feel the league takes away from players’ summer vacations.

But Owens defends it, saying that players basically learn while having fun.

“The people that are critical of it are one, lazy . . . two they don’t understand the passing game, either how to throw football or how to defend the pass.”

Reprinted from The Madison County Journal, July 19, 2007 edition.

by Ben Munro

In case you’re not sure as to the exact second when Madison County will kick off its football season, the Raider team website is happy to enlighten you.

The thoroughly informative eteamz.active.com/madisoncountyfootball/ reveals a ticker that not only posts the exact number of days, hours and minutes until Madison County kicks off against Franklin County Aug. 31, but pinpoints the number of seconds remaining until the moment happens.

Now that’s what we call sports information.

As if we need further evidence, this is more proof that no other sport is so meticulously followed and ceremoniously awaited in the South. Whatever it takes to cope with a long, hot summer, we do it. Notice that we don’t tally the days, hours, minutes and seconds until the first pitch or tip-off, but for football, we countdown like it’s a NASA space shuttle launch.

Of course, the countdown for college and professional football has long been a ritualistic part of the preseason during the lean, sweltering months of June, July and August. In fact, an Athens AM sports talk radio station includes the countdown as part of its hourly sports update. As of press time, the wait for professional football exhibition action was 23 days away and Georgia’s kickoff against offensive juggernaut Oklahoma State stood at 45 days.

Fans probably await the college and pro season longer than they enjoy it.
Thankfully, high school football – aside from maybe recruiting -- isn’t followed quite as obsessively.

Still, it’s certainly a huge deal in big prep football states — like Georgia.

Viewing the Madison County web site is evidence that arrival of prep football is intently tracked in these parts.

And until the pigskin is kicked off in Danielsville, we’ll keep watching the clock.
FYI, as of the completion of this column, kickoff was 44 days, 10 hours — and 37 seconds — away.

Ben Munro is a reporter for The Madison County Journal.