Sports
Panthers, Tigers kickoff 2008 season
By David Goodwin
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A disappointing 2007 campaign for the Tallassee Tigers ended last year with a 34-7 defeat at the hands of the Elmore County High Panthers.
“They beat the mud out of us,” Tallassee head coach Rodney Dollar said.
His 5A Tigers won’t have to wait long for revenge, though, as the rival Eclectic and Tallassee squads open the season against each other Friday at J.E. “Hot” O’Brien Stadium in Tallassee.
ECHS head coach Norman Dean said they enjoyed the traditional end-of-season match-up against Tallassee, “like Alabama and Auburn, but sometimes you’re at the mercy of where you can fill up a schedule.” Some Panther fans, Dean noted, had asked “what idiot scheduled Tallassee first?”
“Well, that would be me,” he admitted, noting that only three dates ” the first, fifth and last games ” are open for non-region opponents.
ECHS comes into the 2008 season ranked number 10 in the Alabama Sportswriters’ preseason poll.
“Our hopes are high, and the kids always get up for (the Tallassee game),” Dean said.
When ECHS was unranked in the past, Dean said he’d used the Panthers’ lack of respect from the sportswriters as motivation, or “bulletin board material.” He assumed Dollar would do the same, but the rankings don’t really matter in the big picture, Dean said.
Dollar, hoping to lead his Tigers away from a 4-6 season where they missed the playoffs, said the game versus ECHS is a good place to start.
“(Dean) is a tremendous motivator,” Dollar, who became friends with Dean when they coached the South All-Stars after the 2006 season, said. “(ECHS players) don’t seem to hulk out when you look at them, but when the whistle blows, they will knock the heck out of you.”
Hosting Eclectic’s Panthers early in the season will also be good for the football team’s budget, Dollar said.
“This year, there’s a lot of excitement,” the second year Tallassee coach said. “They’re going to be hanging off the rafters here, and naturally, that will help the budget.”
The Panthers will be led on offense by senior quarterback Adam Davenport and junior running back Laron Butler. Both were standouts in the Panthers’ run to the semifinals of the 4A state playoffs last season. Davenport, one of the area’s top quarterbacks, threw for nine touchdowns and 1,023 total yards in 12 games last season.
Butler rushed for 1,063 yards on 182 carries last year, scoring nine touchdowns. The Panthers are also looking for a breakout year by junior receiver Reshad DeJarnett.
The Tigers will debut a multi-faceted spread offense led by sophomore signal-caller Trey Cochran-Gill. Cochran-Gill started five games as a freshman during Tallassee’s disappointing 4-6 season. Dollar said his QB is “a smart kids who we’ll expect to make a lot of changes at the line of scrimmage.”
Both teams use a variation of Auburn offensive coordinator Tony Franklin’s spread offense. For Tallassee, the key will be putting the Tigers’ top athletes ” senior cornerback/receivers Tyler Grant and Brian Simmons ” in the places they can make the most happen.
Both speedsters, who are being recruited by a number of college teams, took snaps as quarterback during a recent practice. Grant, in fact, was the Tigers’ starter before Dollar gave the reigns to Cochran-Gill in Game 5 last year, and showed little trouble throwing accurate 20-30 yard passes.
“He’s the total package,” Dollar said of Grant.
“You could see him playing five or six different positions this year.”
Kick-off at J.E. “Hot” O’Brien Stadium is scheduled for 7 p.m.
