High School Football Previews: Billingsley & Jefferson Davis (Johnson, Abernathy, Graetz J.A.G.)
Billingsley
The Billingsley Bears finished up the 2022 season with a 3-7 overall record. The 2022 season was Head Coach Lanny Jones’ first season with the Bears and he only arrived 2 weeks before the kick off of the season. Now with a whole season and a summer for players to learn his coaching style and schemes, Jones is excited to see how the team has grown from year one to year two.
“The fact that the kids know me, they know what our expectations are, what our standards are, and then me just knowing our kids. We didn’t have a great year last year, but that came with a lot of other factors…Our kids in our program now do understand what those are and the ones that chose to be a part of that they’re growing physically and mentally,” says Jones
Over the summer, Jones explained that his team competed in several 7 on 7s. This season a big thing that Jones is trying stress to his team is competing until the end and he feels that the 7 on 7s helped drive that point home.
“We competed. We would be the only team 1A through 3A at all these things, so it would be us versus all these big 6 and 7A schools. I told them I could care less about the score, I want us to compete and get better. At the end of the day there’s no better way to condition for football than to do football stuff. There’s a lot of advantages to that and it pays off for us,” says Jones.
Both junior quarterback, Landon Jones and senior defensive back, Nathan Gilmore, expressed that they’d like to see their team reach the playoffs this season and they believe that is well within reach.
“I want to make playoffs for sure. I think that it would bring back that Billingsley spirit from back in the old days when they were very big… I want to win the area for sure, there’s no doubt in my mind that we can, especially going into the second year having a whole summer getting stronger, bigger and everything,” says Jones.
“Most definitely want to see us accomplish playoffs. To get there we’ve just got to put in work because there’s no doubt in my mind that we can get there, we’ve just got to do it,” says Gilmore.
The Bears will kick off the 2023 season on August 25th on the road at Prattville Christian.
Jefferson Davis (Johnson, Abernathy, Graetz J.A.G.)
The former Jefferson Davis Volunteers, will now be known as the Johnson, Abernathy, Graetz (J.A.G.) Jaguars.
Last season in 2022, J.A.G. recorded a 3-7 record.
The team graduated a lot of seniors, but Head Coach Rory Bell explains that they have a lot of underclassmen who are anxious and ready to get their chance.
“All the kids have been in the program for the last two or three years, so I’m just anxious to see what they have. We’re just lacking some game experience, but other than that they’ve been busting their butts and working hard,” says Bell.
Bell is looking for his team to continue to improve this season and bring a lot of grit and toughness to the field.
“Tough and hard nose, that’s the only way you can be in 7A. Just being a hard nose team, so I’m looking forward to that,” says Bell.
Both, Quintavious Rogers and Jamarius Levystein, are excited for the season to get underway and to see what this team can accomplish this season.
“We’re getting stronger and getting mentally better on the field and off the field. We’ve been working on that a lot this offseason,” says Rogers.
“Just trying to win the region. We’ve got eight or nine games, so we’ve got to lock in,” says Levystein.
J.A.G. will kick off the 2023 season on August 25th on the road at Faith Academy.
