Sherwood Christian football gets biggest 11-man test yet against Southwest Georgia

ALBANY — Five games ago, Sherwood Christian didn’t know exactly what it had.

Friday night, the Eagles may find out.

They are 4-1, which is impressive enough until you consider that they weren’t playing 11-man football a year ago. They lost a talented senior class, changed versions of the sport and landed in a region where nobody seemed particularly interested in easing their transition.

Welcome to Class AA.

Your first region opponent is the defending champion.

Southwest Georgia Academy comes to Legacy Field on Friday night with the same 4-1 record as Sherwood, except the Warriors arrive with a considerably longer résumé. They won the region last season and finished as state runner-up.

If Sherwood wanted a measuring stick, somebody brought the yardstick.

“This is exactly the kind of game you want when you start region play,” Sherwood coach Doug Eason said.

Coaches say things like that because they’re coaches.

Still, Eason has a point.

Sherwood didn’t move from eight-man to 11-man football expecting an easy education. The Eagles joined a region containing SGA, Valwood, Brookwood and other programs accustomed to playing this version of the game.

The surprise isn’t that Sherwood has encountered challenges.

The surprise is how quickly it has looked comfortable facing them.

“We lost a lot of talented seniors from last year, and we’re also making the jump from eight-man to 11-man, so there have been a lot of new challenges,” Eason said. “Our players have bought into what we’re asking them to do. They’ve worked hard, they’ve been coachable, and they’ve trusted each other.”

That has gotten Sherwood to 4-1.

Getting to 5-1 will require dealing with Colt Williams.

That’s easier typed than accomplished.

The SGA senior running back is committed to Harvard and is the centerpiece of a talented Warriors backfield that also includes senior Brody Enfinger. Put those two behind SGA’s offensive line and the assignment becomes fairly obvious.

Stop the run.

More specifically, keep Williams from turning ordinary plays into extraordinary ones.

“Colt is a talented football player, and he has the ability to change a game every time he touches the ball,” Eason said. “The coaches do a good job of getting him involved and putting him in situations where he can make plays.”

There isn’t a clever defensive scheme that makes Williams disappear.

Sherwood needs 11 people doing what they’re supposed to do.

“We have to tackle well, play disciplined football, limit explosive plays and make him earn everything he gets,” Eason said. “You can’t just have one guy responsible for stopping a player like that.”

As if facing the defending region champion weren’t enough, Sherwood will do it without its regular quarterback.

Chuck LaGrange was injured last week and will miss a few weeks. That puts freshman Brandon Hemmings behind center for the beginning of region play.

Nothing like easing the freshman into things.

Eason, though, has liked what he has seen.

“He played with confidence, made good decisions and didn’t let the moment get too big for him,” Eason said. “The last three weeks Brandon has really stepped up.”

Now the moment gets considerably bigger.

And possibly wetter.

Rain is expected to move through Southwest Georgia on Friday, meaning Legacy Field could provide the sort of conditions that make ball security, field position and tackling even more important.

For Sherwood, though, the larger question isn’t really about the weather. It isn’t even entirely about SGA.

It’s about Sherwood.

Five games have provided evidence that the Eagles can make the transition to 11-man football. Friday begins the part of the schedule that will tell them where they fit among the teams that have been doing it much longer.

Eason isn’t treating one September night as a referendum on his program.

“Regardless of the outcome, we know it’s one game in a long season,” he said. “We want to play our best football, compete for four quarters and find out what we need to improve moving forward.”

That’s the sensible way to look at it.

But there’s no getting around what Friday represents.

Sherwood wanted to know whether it could compete in 11-man football.

At 4-1, the Eagles have already supplied part of the answer.

Now the defending region champions are coming to town to ask the next question.