Schools
Decatur Meets S. Atlanta Tonight
Visitors were 3-7 last year, including a 20-7 loss to the Bulldogs.
Decatur goes head-to-head Friday night against a team that's already played two hard-fought games.
South Atlanta first took a 14-8 victory over Druid Hills and suffered a surprisingly close 3-0 loss to North Atlanta last week, while Decatur had a fairly effortless opener in which the Bulldogs crushed North Springs 56-6.
The game starts at 7:30 p.m. in Decatur High Stadium.
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“We aren’t in real good game condition yet,” Decatur head Coach Price Jones said Wednesday after practice, “and one thing you can say about [South Atlanta] is that they have an outstanding defense. They have what you call a high risk defense. They bring everybody up on the line and they’re coming right at you. If you have three receivers, they’re putting seven on the line, if you have two receivers, they’re putting eight.
“What they want to do,” Jones said, “is either disrupt the hand-off or sack the quarterback. It’s like a basketball team that full-court presses. We need to do a really good job of planning what area of the field we want to attack.”
Find out what's happening in Decatur-Avondale Estateswith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Jones is also anxious his team’s health. Perez Cowan, who returned the opening kickoff 85 yards last week is out with bruised ribs along with some tooth problems. Freshman sensation and halfback Tommy Renfroe has a bruised knee and was on crutches Wednesday. He will miss at least this week’s game. Halfback Roderick Adams is also out with an ankle sprain.
On the flip side, sophomore fullback/linebacker Nick Bentley, who played very little last week because of an ankle sprain, and who’s without question one of this team’s most critical players, has been cleared to play against South Atlanta.
South Atlanta was 3-7 last year, including a 20-7 loss to Decatur on Sept. 3. What stands out about that game was South’s mind-numbingly dreary offense, basically featuring runs by either the quarterback or tailback and not a whole lot more. In that one South completed only 2 of 4 passes for 25 yards.
Which reminds us, by most popular accounts, the first legal forward pass in football history was thrown on Sept. 5, 1906.