“Offensively, we’ve had some injuries,” Sylacauga head coach Matt Griffith said. “Ian Floyd has a high ankle sprain. He got it late in the Childersburg game. We took him out in the first quarter against Chilton County. Right now, we are probably going to hold him out this game and let him heal up. We are going to have to have some other kids step up and play.”
The Aggies’ (5-1,3-1) offense will have to get back on track in order to take down Homewood on the road. Sylacauga looks to get more production out of players like TJ Smith. The senior has been able to put up solid numbers on limited carries throughout the season. Griffith said his role is going to increase with Floyd on the sideline.
“We’ve got two kids that we are working there right now,” Griffith said. “With TJ Smith at the A-back position, we are going to have to give him more carries. We are going to have to throw the ball a little more to take some pressure off our young running back and just see what happens.”
Sylacauga went into Chilton County undefeated, but they left with their first loss of the season, 28-7. The loss put the Aggies tied for second in with Chilton County with three region games left.
“Since we got past Childersburg and started region play again all the games are in a row,” Griffith said. “So they are all important. It is going to be every week to see where you end up one, two, three or four in the region to make the playoffs.”
The Patriots enter tonight’s game on a roll. In their last three games they outscored their opponents 180-27. Griffith believes this is Homewood’s best team that they have had in a while.
“It is probably one of the most talented teams to me that Homewood has had in the last three, four or five years,” Griffith said. “Anytime you’ve got a 6A school that has been reclassified for the next two years back in 5A football, you are going to have a good football team. You look at what Homewood has done; you look at what Ben Russell has done. They are literally a 6A school playing 5A ball. They are very, very talented. They have big linemen, they have two really good running backs and they have a really good football team.”
Controlling time of possession and not allowing big plays are two of the Aggies’ goals going into tonight’s game.
“The main thing is we have to keep our offense on the field and knock out first downs,” Griffith said. “We can’t keep our defense on the field like we did last week. The biggest thing is we can’t give them cheap touchdowns. We can’t give up the big play, we can’t put the ball on the ground in good field position for them. We just have to play really good, fundamentally sound football. If we do that, we will give ourselves a chance to win.”
Contact LaVonte Young at lyoung@dailyhome.com. Follow him on Twitter @LYoung_DHSports.
