Posted by NoleCC

By “The Brad” Richardson

Ahhhh, the refreshing smell of freshly cut grass. The sound of pads pounding. The occasional coaches actually coaching, but mostly just screaming. Children chasing each other in the parking lot. Drum lines beating in harmony in the distance. The voices of cheerleaders yelling in unison. Buses, charters, carpools, vans, cars, trucks, and mopeds fill the lots. Banners are hung with the utmost precision, siting the visiting teams future demise. Half price hot dogs and hamburgers for only a $1.12. This is high school football, and three friends and I were lucky enough to experience it all again last night.’,'The Class 3A Amos P. Godby Cougars played host to the visiting 5A A. C. Mosley Dolphins from Panama City at Gene Cox field last night. I being a ‘96 graduate from Mosley, and because one of my friends is an alumnus from Godby, we gathered up to witness the glory in High School Football. The trash talk began early this week as instant messages crossed over the internet, with the only cheers we could muster up to remember. A friendly bet was made and in giving away who won last night, I owe my friend a Milky Way Special Dark. Anyway, we all gathered at our special meeting place to carpool the stadium. We arrived at the stadium before anyone else because we all had a flashback moment in thinking we were going to tailgate before the game. Needless to say, we had our choice of parking. We grabbed a bite to eat and something to drink and headed to the stands. Once again, our tailgaiting and FSU game attendance got the best of us, as we broke open a couple of miniatures to spice things up a little bit. Yes, I know, we are pathetic. But it made for some good laughs.

Pre-game warmups began and we all reminised about our days of glory on the gridiron. I myself being the brunt of the jokes because some people don’t appreciate a punter who can actually kick to the coffin corner. The fans started rolling in with teachers, parents, and students alike, all wearing their teams colors with pride. The coin toss over, one team deferred the other chose to receive. (Sorry I don’t remember much about the coin toss. One of our guys in our group, not naming names, Dave, was pointing me out to the cheerleading pyramid. Specifically, the one on top standing on one leg and holding her other. Sick you are Dave, sick you are.) Anywho, the game began and the competition was off.

It was an OK game with both teams making mistakes and both teams making some big plays. But here are a few that stick out in my mind. This is the epitomy of high school ball. Mosley struck first with a field goal, and Godby answered with a TD of their own. Now on the ensuing kickoff Godby does a high pooch kick to one side of the field. Mosley’s upback immediately runs to the middle of the field to set up his wall, vacating the exact spot where the ball was going to land. Mosley recovers the “pseudo” onside kick. Godby ends up getting the ball back and scores again. So here we go again. With two minutes left in the half, here comes the same high pooch kick. This time the same upback stays where he is, however, he lets the ball go, it lands 10 inches behind him, bounces through his legs, and Godby recovers. WOW. Now that’s comedy. The next two minutes lasted around 38 minutes, because a holding call was followed by a block in the back, then offsides, twice, a false start, pass interference, and personal fouls on both teams occurred. After all that Godby had gained a net of 2 positive yards and there was still 1:05 left on the clock. 3rd down and Mosley drops back into Prevent to prevent them from stopping Godby at all. Godby runs a tight end down the middle of the field. He stops turns around and catches the ball. Now, because Mosley had 8 defensive back on the field they all converge on him like wild animals. They just forgot what they were hunting because the tight end scored. yay. Wonderful prevent.

On a side note, I did notice something peculiar about Mosley’s QB. Every single play no matter if it was a pass or run, he would bootleg toward Mosley’s sideline. I thought to myself that’s weird. Then I realized he did that so he could run to the sideline, get the next play while the current play was going on, and run back to where the huddle would be to bark out the next play. Evidently the art of signals is dead and gone.

On another side note, don’t eat anything at these games until 10:16 is left in the 4th quarter. Why you ask? Because all of the food get marked down in price like a Dollar General liquidation sale. They had 50 cent hot dogs and hamburgers for $1.12!!!! How great is that??? We all got a kick out of that when the announcer announced this great price reduction.

Godby went on to win the game and proceeded back home. The ride home was filled with laughter at how this great game is played on such a smaller scale. On the opening night of the movie that is supposed to represent high school football in all aspects, I can’t help but think of the joy and laughter we all experienced last night. All in all, it was good to be with friends. It was good to see old teachers, and friends of the family. It was good to see coaches. It was good to see my team play. It was all good, under the thursday night lights.