Last Week’s Scores

Leeds 19, Greensboro 12

Notasulga 37, Ragland 36

Austin 41, Pell City 19

This Week’s Game

Leeds (8-3) vs. Andalusia (10-1)

At the beginning of the season, Leeds football coach Lee Gibson was asked in an interview what his expectations were for the 2016 season. He replied that his expectations were the same as the community’s – nothing short of a state championship would suffice.

This Friday at Homer Smiles field will be the game that tells Gibson and Leeds whether or not they have the kind of team on the field that can repeat as champions. The Greenwave hosts Andalusia, the top ranked team in Class 4A – a team brimming with talent on offense, defense and special teams. A team that has thoroughly dominated every opponent this year, with the exception of their single loss to UMS-Wright, another elite 4A team.

Leeds’ defense should emulate Alabama’s defense from last week’s game against LSU – build a wall and key in on Leonard Fournette. In the Greenwave’s game, they need to use the exact same approach to key in on senior running back Jamal Hourel, who has received offers from Illinois and Troy University, as well as interest from several SEC schools. Hourel is a big back – six feet tall and over 200 pounds, and his running style is a lot like Eddie Lacy – a tackle breaker and stiff-arm runner who also has nifty lateral movement, a long stride and good vision. Hourel is joined in the backfield by Zack Woods – another senior running back who is a small and fast water bug who gets lost behind his big line and drives through openings very quickly.

The Bulldogs aerial attack features 6 foot 3 inch wide receiver junior Bridges Anderson, who has excellent hands and an impressive vertical leap. The Greenwave’s secondary will likely have to play a lot of man-to-man because of the running attack, and being on an island with Anderson will be a very daunting task.

Defensively Andalusia is rock solid, having given up only 86 points in the regular season. Hourel plays in the secondary, and is being recruited by many schools to play safety. Hourel is joined by Tyquise Jenkins, a senior strong safety and sophomore free safety Roosevelt Weaver, a phenomenal athlete and the leader of Andalusia’s future teams. The Bulldogs will try to do to Leeds what they have done to all of their opponents, smother the running game, take away all deep routes through the air with their elite corps of safeties, and blow up intermediate routes.

On offense, look for Leeds to stretch the field horizontally and play outside the hashes. If the Greenwave can get outside quickly and consistently gain four to six yards per play out on the perimeter, it might counterbalance the athletes on Andalusia’s team and give Leeds a good chance to win a close game.