Eight Greats Around the State Part II

The Coffee Trojans will host the Brunswick Pirates on Friday night. Brunswick suffered several losses to graduation across the board, so lack of experience and quality depth might be a concern for the Pirates early in the season. Coffee certainly isn’t a team that you’d normally want to face to “ease into the season”. The Trojans are the Class 6A runner-up from 2017. Coffee will be replacing key starters at the skill positions as well. Antonio Dawson looks to be the heir apparent for the Coffee ground game, while Milton Jackson could give the Brunswick secondary fits on Friday night. We think that Coffee is the favorite here and we like for them to win this one by two scores.

Blessed Trinity begins their title defense on the road against a very challenging opponent in the St. Pius Golden Lions. The Titans return a talented corp of starters at the skill positions on offense, including Steele Chambers and Elijah Green at running backs, Jake Smith under center and Ryan Davis at receiver. But the Golden Lions won’t be intimidated by BT. Connor Egan led St. Pius to the semi-finals last season. Michael Benefield is a talented back that will help take some pressure off of Egan. We think this game will be close for the first half. But we expect Blessed Trinity to flex it’s muscle late and win by 10 on the road.

The Tee Webb era begins at Cartersville on Friday night. He will be matched up against another talented quarterback in Dante Marshall for Allatoona. Cartersville seemed to pick up where they left off, (even without Trevor Lawrence), last week in their scrimmage. But we won’t get carried away with scrimmage results. Tight-end Jackson Lowe is as good as advertised and should be poised to help lead the Purple Hurricanes air attack. We don’t think that the Bucs can win in a shootout with Cartersville. Can the Allatoona defense be physical enough to keep Cartersville in check? The Bucs offense might be their best defense this week. If they can keep Webb on the sidelines with long sustained drives, perhaps they can sway the momentum in their favor. We think this game will be closer than the 21 points last season, but we still like Cartersville by two scores.

The fourth game of the Corky Kelly Classic features the Archer Tigers, who have really come on to the scene over the last several years as a force to be reckoned with in class 7A. Defensive backs Andrew Booth and Jalyn Phillips will certainly make passing the ball challenging for Milton QB Jordan Yates. Yates is a dual threat quarterback that has committed to Georgia Tech. Syaire Waters should be one of the receivers that Milton will look to help fill the void left by graduation. Archer QB Carter Peevy is no slouch himself. Last season he passed for over 2,000 yards. The Tigers have a little more experience returning at the skill positions, and that’s why we like them to win this game by two scores.