MOBILE, AL (WNSP) — The defending 7A champs are two games away from repeating.
McGill-Toolen head coach Caleb Ross joined the Opening Kickoff on Thursday morning in preparation for the Yellow Jackets’ semifinal playoff game. He said the team had little left to prepare for its Friday night matchup with Central-Phenix City.
“We’ll do a little walkthrough again in the morning, just clean up, and do some film work,” he said. “But no, pretty much the hay’s in the barn.”
Ross said there aren’t any more special plays left in the Yellow Jackets’ playbook. He said they may “present something a different way,” but that’s the extent of the planned tricks.
“At this point in the year, it is what it is, and everybody’s got so much tape on your opponent,” he said. “You know what they’re gonna do, they know what you’re gonna do. It really comes down to execution.”
Mark asked if a team could “practice too much” or how difficult it was to keep players focused and playing as hard as they were in August.
“It’s a great challenge,” Ross said. “I think every coach goes through that, because you wanna get to the point where everybody says, ‘coach, we’re bored.’ That’s good. ‘If you’re bored, it means you’re reacting, you’re not thinking out there.
“‘We’ve done it so much that you’re just reacting to what’s happening,’ but at the end of the day you wanna keep their focus. You don’t want their mind to wander.”
Lee asked about Ross’s success as a player.
“At Prattville, we won the region my senior year,” he said. “We had a bunch of guys that were solid, but never the success I’ve had as a coach. I’ve been very blessed.”
Ross said he would definitely rather play at home rather than make the four-hour trip to Phenix City.
“They’ll have their kids prepared for this trip,” Ross said. “Same way we had our kids prepared for the trip last year. It’s really going to come down to playing on the field.”
That game kicks off at 7 p.m. on Friday night, and it will be broadcast on WNSP as the High School Football Game of the Week. Coverage will start at 6 p.m. with Pigskin Pete’s Pepsi Preview Program, followed by the game and Pigskin Pete’s Postgame Scoreboard until midnight.
Listen to the full interview below.
For more, check out Opening Kickoff with Mark and Lee on weekday mornings from 6 to 9 a.m.
