Belgreen excited to kick off first varsity football campaign, play in new stadium

It’s an exciting time to be a Belgreen Bulldog. The fledgling football program at Belgreen High School is set to begin its first varsity season on Friday and will kick it off with its first home game in brand new digs, Sparks Stadium.

Leading the team out onto the field under the Fright night lights will be head coach Jonathan Raper, who was tabbed to lead the program when it began last season with a junior high and junior varsity team. Although the new home for Belgreen football, made possible by an anonymous $1.5 million donation, may not be completely finished by opening kickoff Friday night, Raper said the build up to the first varsity game and first home game has created a lot of enthusiasm around campus.

“The kids are excited,” he said. “As we get closer and closer, everyday I think they get just a little more excited about playing at home, in front of the student body and the community. Even though we probably won’t have everything done until next year, to be able to play at home in front of our crowd instead of on the road every game is big for them.

“They’re really looking forward to it,” he added.

At the Football in the South Scoreboard Show Media Day in July, players echoed that sentiment.

“I think that it’s going to be really exciting. There’s probably going to be nothing like it from how everyone is talking it up,” senior running back and linebacker Gabe Wilson said. “It’s really just a blessing that we have those facilities and that someone was able to donate the money for us to have those facilities.”

“I think it’ll be good to win some games at home and get the community in it,” added senior Hunter Woodruff, who came out to play football for the first time this season. “Nobody ever thought they’d see football at Belgreen, and so to hear it talked about the way it has been now, I think it’ll be good.”

Belgreen fans who watched the Bulldogs play junior high and junior varsity games last season may also notice a few new wrinkles to the offense and a leap in improvement overall. Last season everything was brand new for the Bulldogs, from learning the basics to learning plays and formations. This year, with more familiarity with how things are done, Belgreen has taken bigger strides and been able to practice and implement concepts faster and smoother.

“We had a good year with these kids last year, and I feel like right now, from where we started out, we’re night and day ahead of where we were last season,” Raper said earlier this year. “If you looked at us last year and you watch us this year, I think you’ll see a vast improvement.

“We’ve still got several new kids that are having to learn, but it helps as a coach when you’ve got players there that are working with them that know what they’re doing and can help them. That’s made it easier on the new kids that have come out that haven’t played, and it’s made things smoother and easier, being able to move kids around more and find fits for them,” Raper said.

“Just all the way around with their knowledge and knowing what their jobs are we’re further along,” he added. “We’ve tweaked a few things with our offense, and for the most part that’s gone really smooth.”

This season, like last season, the Bulldogs will run the wing-T offense but have added a few more formations within that style of offense.

“Last year we ran the wing-T under center the whole time. We’re still in the wing-T but we’re going to be running it out of the shotgun some this year, too,” Raper said.

In the wing-T, offenses need a good decision maker behind center. Leading the offense on the field is the returning quarterback, senior Landon Cox, who Raper said, like the rest of the team, is improving in skill and knowledge of his position. 

“Landon played it last year and he’s back there this year. He’s our guy,” Raper said. “He’s learning and doing a good job and there’s not much more we can ask of him right now. He’s done a good job of understanding what his role is and what we’re expecting of him.”

Rush Berryman, who took reps at quarterback last year, as well, suffered a wrist injury heading into the campaign, but he is another player to keep tabs on in that position in the future, Raper said. 

In front of a confident quarterback, the wing-T offense also requires offensive guards who know their assignments. For the Bulldogs this season, the two guards they will be relying on to kick out defenders and open up running lanes will be Wilson and Landon Cantrell. Behind them, toting the football and looking to take advantage of any open space will be Woodruff and Skyler Vickry.

“(Woodruff) has done a good job and is starting to understand his role,” Raper said. “(Vickry) will be back there, too. He was a starter last year who quit but has come back out. They’ve both done a good job.”

Belgreen receivers Chandless, a first-year player, and Brayden Messer have grown a lot, Raper said, and will also play key roles in the offense, along with other younger receivers in the group who could make names for themselves this season.

“In this gun-T there’ll be some two-by-twos or doubles and stuff like that, so you can increase your spread a little bit and get people in space,” he said. “I think there may be some surprises from that group.”

As mentioned previously, Belgreen’s roster has gotten longer this season and that increase in participation has meant an increase in talent, as well.

“This year, I think one of our strengths is we just have more playmakers,” Raper said. “I think this year we’ve got four to five kids, possibly six, that you could say when they get a little more game experience could be good for us on offense. We just have more playmakers than we did last year.”

On defense, the Bulldogs haven’t changed much if anything schematically from last year, Raper said. But like the offense, it will be looking to a few key guys to perform well this season. There will be a lot of Bulldogs playing both ways, but players like Dalton Gardner, Wayne Shelnutt, Easton Mitchell, Brayden Nelson, and Thomas McKinney will be players to keep an eye on this season.

Taking a look at Belgreen’s 2024 schedule, the Bulldogs will play seven games total with four home games at Sparks Stadium. All but two opponents—Tharptown and Tanner—compete at the 1A level. 

Belgreen will start the season hosting Shoals Christian; it’s a game the Bulldogs, of course, want to win—it’d be a lovely house warming gift—but Raper said the main thing he wants to see is fundamental football.

“We want to win and that’s what we’re working for, but the biggest thing I’m looking for is make them beat us—let’s not beat ourselves,” he said. “We want to play good, sound, fundamental football.”

The season opener will also give the Bulldogs an opportunity to play a facet of the game they haven’t had to execute in a real contest before: special teams.

“Last year we didn’t kick, so this year that’s another element—kickoff, kick return, punt, punt return—that we get to experience,” Raper said. “We’ve done it in practice but we haven’t done it in a live game.

“That’s a big part of the game, and it can get you beat in a hurry if you don’t do it right,” he added.

In the opener, Raper isn’t looking for perfection but instead wants to see how his team will respond to adversity when it happens.

“First game of the season, there will be jitters—I’ll have jitters,” he said. “There will be mistakes and things we don’t do right, but it’s a matter of can we overcome it and can we handle it when something bad happens.”

Belgreen will travel to Sumiton Christian for game two before heading to Tharptown in the third week of the season. The battle against the Wildcats will be a game to keep an eye on as a potential rivalry game in the future. At the Football in the South Scoreboard Show Media Day the players’ consensus was the Tharptown matchup was the game they were most looking forward to.

“I can’t wait for Tharptown,” senior Landon Cantrell said with his other three teammates nodding in agreement.

“Tharptown’s a big one,” senior Gabe Wilson added.

After Tharptown, Belgreen will then have an open week before hosting Class 2A Tanner on September 20th and Cherokee on September 27th. The Bulldogs will have three bye weeks and then cap the season with a road game at Victory Christian on October 25th before hosting Vina in the season finale on November 1st.

“I guess the (games against) county schools will be intriguing, but you have to show up whatever Friday night that is…and be ready to play whoever it is you’re playing,” Raper said. “You don’t treat—and I never have in my 30 years of coaching—anybody any different.

“I know you get excited about someone a little bit more, but you better treat everybody the same and you better be ready to execute and be ready to roll because on any given night you could be in trouble.”

With no region schedule and no chance at postseason play in 2024, Raper said Belgreen’s goals for the year center not around wins and losses but rather player development and progression as a football team.

“Our goal is to get better every day. We can’t make the playoffs or anything like that, and that’s what I told (the players): we’re going to get better as the season goes along and that’s what we have to focus on,” Raper said. “We’ve got to improve every day and understand that everything is 110 percent. Every play, every rep, every practice—when the play is going away from you, it's still 110 (percent).

“Those are the types of things we want to focus on while we’re building the program,” he added. “It’s baby steps. We’ve got to do the little things before we can do the bigger things.”

That being said, the players still feel like they have something to prove.

“I’d just like to show people that we’re not messing around,” Wilson said.

No matter the results, no matter the Bulldogs’ record this season, Raper is confident the student body and the community, as they have already tremendously shown, will continue to support the young program, and he believes the program, in return, can give something back to the community.

“It takes everybody to have a successful program,” Raper said. “Local churches, the local businesses—it’s not just the players. It’s the school, it’s the community. Everyone’s got to be involved to have a successful program.

“The support has been awesome,” Raper added. “I think it’s going to be something cool for the kids, on Saturday morning they go into CJ’s (Grocery), you know, or they’re at school and people see them and say, ‘Hey, you did a pretty good job Friday night.’

“Once (the players) graduate, I want them to come back and support the program and be involved,” he added. “And for the community, we have had great support from them, so we want to give them something they can take pride in and be a part of.”