The South Greene football team will be making the long trip to Maynardville on Friday night looking to continue riding high after a pair of blowout wins.
The Rebels took down Chuckey-Doak 58-14 last week and Cumberland Gap 42-0 the week before to improve to 2-1, and now they are taking on an 0-4 Union County squad.
“Union County has some athletes, but they haven’t a lot of success on the field,” South Greene coach Shawn Jones said. “With those kids that look like they can play you still think they can do some things to challenge you. Hopefully this week isn’t the week that figure it out.”
On Friday the Rebels want to establish the run game early to open things up in the passing game. Last week Nash Rader led the ground effort with 83 yards and two touchdowns, while Tripp Neas averaged over six yards per carry and quarterback Jacob Susong averaged over 10 yards per carry.
Through air Susong threw three touchdown passes to three different receivers, including finding Trey Gentry in the endzone in his first game back from injury.
Last week in a 41-12 loss to Kingston Union County allowed 403 yards rushing.
“We just need to do what we do, we need to run the football, and if they load the box on us we need to be able to throw it. We need to worry about ourselves and try to do what we do well,” Jones said.
Jones expects Union County to mix up their formations on Friday night, relying on the I-formation and power sets on early downs and transitioning to the spread in passing situations. Against Kingston the Patriots managed 152 yards on the ground, but only went 4-of-11 passing.
“They may line up in a pro I one series, a power set the next series, and then spread the next series,” Jones said. “So we have to be prepared for it all. They like to line up and run the ball, but in passing downs they will spread it out and that will give us a chance to apply a little pressure. They have a big offensive line, but we feel like we have the opportunity to have success against them.”
Last year South Greene defeated the Patriots 47-0. That was the first ever meeting between the two programs.
