Listen to @BenThomasPreps @ONTHEDMARK1 discussing @AHSAAupdates recorded July 7

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kicking it off.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Kicking it off, We're gonna kick off some coverage this morning.
As we do most every Mondays, we go to the
Hamilton's Outline about this time to the Dafte Spanish fort
area for our every Monday. What do we call it
our I would say our gifted session, but we're gifted
of knowledge from Ben got Game Thomas who writes from
al dot com and he is live on the Hamilton's outline.

(00:22):
Good morning, Ben.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hey, Good morning fellow stuff. Y'all had a good fourth July?
We surely did.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
We did, Bud, how about you? Did y'all have a
good one?

Speaker 1 (00:32):
We had a good one. My wife's birthday is also
on the fifth, so we celebrated her and celebrated the
fourth and good weather and swam a little bit good
and posted some stuff about recruits because for some reason,
they like to commit on the fourth July. I don't
know why. Just to keep me busy and keep me
on my toes. I guess. So, yeah, we're but now

(00:56):
I feel like I feel like we're in football season.
I know we got a couple of couple of weeks left,
but you know, for me, it's starting to plan right now.
For the media days. You guys mentioned y'all, Yeah, be
having all at the end of well, got one in
Huntsville on the seventeenth or the twenty first, and then
then want to have them in Birmingham and Mobile in

(01:17):
the last week of the last week of the month.
So we're starting to plan for those and starting to
get our plans in year for the fall. And it'll
be here before we know it, and unfortunately it'll be
gone before we know I know. That's what that works out.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
That's what Jeff and I always talk about, is like
July hits and then this December it's like boom, you know, my.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Grand's the first game, and you think it's going to
be a long season, and that seems like fifteen weeks later,
you're like, well that's it. Yeah, I'll move it on.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
It goes very fast. Ben got game Thomas with us.
He's live on the Hamilton's outline from his home in Daphney,
Spanish Fort area. We're talking high school football and you
all right, it will roll by fast. And you know,
speaking of commitments, and I'm out of you know, I
call them pledges until they signed. But it's like Alabama's
done well within state. Some of these guys in North
Carolina and the Jackson area has done well, hadn't he?

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, I mean it's uh yeah, Alabama's killing it. I mean,
there's just no other way around it. It's hard for
me to understand the current recruiting parameters. I guess you
was saying, it's you know, you know, did you see
did you guys see that Texas Tech announced they had
signed or got to recruit commit an offensive tackle and

(02:33):
sign them to a three year, five point one million
dollars Dad, No, I did not.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
I mean we've been signing multi year deals.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Huh apparently, And you know, when when August first comes
and the new revenue sharing stuff comes into play, I
don't know how that's gonna work out. As some of
these deals are gonna get nullified. I think something I'm
gonna get mellified, but then those are probably going to
go to court. So I just I think, you know,
they've let as we talked about, they've let the cat

(03:01):
out of the bag too much. They can't put it
back in, and now they're trying to regulate it, and
I think it's almost just too late. It's just the money,
the money being raised for these four and five star
guys is unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
So he's gonna sign a three year, five million. So
that's what they're doing, locking them in to the contract situation.
I believe that's part of the new regime. Way, isn't
it been?

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, well, you know Texas Tech is the one that
had had the million dollars off. They did, yeah, reapped
her again for another million.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
I forgot about that being they they did.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Re up her. Yeah. Yeah. They announced during the World
Series that they signed her again to another million.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
He makes a million dollars playing softball.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Now, Look, I can't I'm not blaming the kids. I mean,
oh no, they can make the money. That's fine, But
I just don't know how you regulate it. If you do,
I don't think you do. And where it goes from here,
I mean, I just you know, we're basically talking about
the many NFL right now and being I'm going to
go no, I just I don't you know. It's it's

(04:07):
it's college football is still college football, and they're always
going to be out there with your you know, the
uniform of your favorite college on there. But sometimes in
the back of my mind, I wonder whether they really
like my university or or are they just playing for
the almighty dollar.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Playing for that green And I don't blame that now.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
But to answer your to ans your initial question, the
mark about Alabama, Yeah, they're uh, you know they they
get beat pretty sadly in state last year by Auburn.
I mean, Alburn kind of swept the top ten guys
in state. Alabama had a great recruiting year. Uh, they
recruited nationally. But uh, this year they're killing it really

(04:45):
everywhere in state. And how to state, They've already got
the guy most people consider the number one player in
the state this year. Sadarian Morgan, the Benjamin Russell wide receiver,
committed last week to them. The Well the Jackson running
back committed to them a couple of weeks ago. And
they're they're in the final three to get the number

(05:07):
two player in the state, Anthony tank Jones, the edge
linebacker from Saint Paul's. They're one of three schools I
think with Texas A and M and Horgan uh in
his final three. So I mean and they and they've
also got Zion Gibson, who was number four. He's a
he's a dB out of Gaston City. So they're they've
got a pretty good chance to get those top four guys.

(05:28):
And I'm looking at the two four seven composite rankings.
When I stay top four, I mean they might juggle
a little bit depending on what rankings you're looking at,
but understand, but everybody pretty much has got Phoebe Morgan
as the number one guy, and Crowel right up there
with Tank Jones. So those three are pretty much in
everybody top three. And Alabama's got two of them and

(05:48):
looks like they may get the third as well.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Wow, you know we were sitting here. I looked at
Jason about that Benja Russell. He helps fan with op
blocker broadcast. Well, oh black opens with them, right Jason
or no, like a week one?

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (06:01):
That that guy's pretty sporty. I guess to be to
be number one. So yeah, that's interesting to see. Now,
these aren't these aren't signed their pledges as I call.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
Them, right, they're pledges. Yeah, I mean they I get.
I mean, you know, as far as I know, they'll
still sign in December, but I mean who knows these days, Yeah,
what they're what they're doing. But yeah, Morgan, I mean
he caught I think it was like seventy four passes
last year or something like that for almost twelve hundred
yards for a team that really wasn't that good. I

(06:31):
mean five and six or six five, right, something like that,
lost in the first or second round of playoffs. And
now you've got coach Johnson over there. You gotta expect
they're going to do a lot better. I know he
got a quarterback that came with him from Montgomery Catholic,
and so I expect them to take They may be
one of the biggest jumpers as far as going from

(06:53):
you know, not great to contenders. I don't know if
their title contenders, but I think they're definitely a playoff
dinder in the region title contender.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
You here, Yeah, I know, you're probably right. You hear
these names from these players and you don't really understand
how good they are until they get to be a
scene and you see where they rank. Like I've heard
this young man from Benjamin Russell. I just didn't realize
he was the best player in the state of Alabama
because there was I mean, I hear about him, but
it's amazing, you know, and I knew the guys in
Jackson me and you've been talking about them for several years.
They are they are loaded that Cody has got him

(07:23):
some talent. He's done a good job at the coach.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah, and you know the back CD. You know, it's
kind of over said that they had Malcolm Simmons there
two years. Yes, now I think he was really underrated
and I think he might be an you know, breakout
star for all good call. But yeah, Jackson is So
I went up to E. J. Crowell's commitment a couple

(07:47):
of weeks ago, and so now they have they have currently,
like you mentioned d Mark, three players going to nor
committed to North Carolina. The two Chapmans, the twin brothers,
Keon Chapman who's the big boy receiver and Keegan Chapman
who's the defensive back. And also Jamri and Gordon who
was has been committed to Alabama once UCF once. Now

(08:10):
he's committed to North Carolina. Also, all three of those guys,
You got Crowell going to Alabama, and you still got
the quarterback Land and Duckworth. So I think is going
to announce the eighteenth he was he was a one
time South Carolina commit and I think probably he's going
to be a two times South Carolina commit. He said,
it's down to South Carolina and Auburn. But you know,
Auburn got recently got that sliff quarterback from Penn State,

(08:35):
and I just feel like probably South Carolina. He's a
lot like that guy that got right now the North
Sellers who he could he could potentially move right into
that spot when when that guy leaves, so I expect
him to end up at South Carolina. And then coach
coach Fornowi says, you know, all those guys lead this year,
but he says they've got some pretty pretty good guys

(08:56):
stack behind him the one and speaking of openers, y'all
talked about Benjamin Russell opolaka opener. You know, Jackson host
Sara land yep in the first game on August twenty
second up in Jackson. Of course, Jeff Kelly used to
coach at Jackson. They're kind of reloading a little bit.
They lost some good players, but they'll they'll have a

(09:17):
bunch of good they have a bunch of good players
and that'll be Uh, there's a bunch of good games
in the States and that in that first week.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yeah, am I mistaken? Did they play didn't they play
a close game last.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
Year, Ben, Yeah, Sara Land, Sara Lane beat him fourteen. No,
it was thirty five twenty seven.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
I was all over it.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
It was closed. Yeah, yeah, you got you were you
you got it right. It was a close game game, Yeah,
I scoring and you thought, yeah, I thought that, Yeah,
they were. They were right there at sair Land thirty
five twenty seven. And that was with kJ Lacey and
y you know mc williams and C gill and those
guys that aren't there anymore at Sara Land. So they'll be, uh,

(09:57):
they'll be loaded and ready to go. I was when
I was right in the store on one of the
stories on them last week. I was looking back, and
you know, they beat Cherokee County sixty nine to sit
in the championship game. I mean, it's just this team
is you know, if you had if you had to
look at across all seven classifications and say, who's the
most likely team to win a state championship regardless of classification,

(10:20):
It's got to be Jackson. Who else? Who? You could
throw Thompson in there because we expect them to always
be there. But I think, you know, Parker is going
to be loaded again, but Jackson is you know, it's
almost gonna be a shock if they don't, if they
don't end up back at Birmingham, I think.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
I mean you Their playoff run was fifty five zero,
fifty one zero, forty one to ten, forty nine to
twenty eight. In the championship game sixty nine to six,
they scored twenty seven, forty two, forty three, forty nine,
fifty five, fifty five, forty forty eight and fifty five.
They need to get them some offense. I'm a little
concerned about their offense.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, I mean, holy oh.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
They scored twenty points against Baker, their lowest output of
the year, won the game twenty to thirteen. I don't
know what Baker did if they shut them down.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
Well, good, Baker was good to Ben play last year.
You know there's that's a seven eighteen. So you know
they came down to to play a seven eighteen. Wow,
and they did slow them down. But Baker, like I said,
they were a second round playoff team last year under
Jan Johnson, who's now at James Clemens. But they were
a good team. And you know they got Jackson's in

(11:29):
the same region with Saint Michael. That's Philip Rivers game
and they got their big, big time skilled players back.
I just don't think they have enough athletes on defense
to uh to keep these guys in check unless there's
some injuries or it's a sloppy night, or you know,
anything can happen. That's why they play the games. But

(11:49):
it's you would think Jackson would be, except for maybe
Sarah Land a multi double digit favorite and every game
they played this year.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, yeah, I would agree. We'd been almos with a
state forty five. You're on the mark forty five minutes
past the ie. We're talking high school football. We were
talking Jackson. Here's another prompting team you think coming back
that you mentioned Parker. We always got to stay Thompson
with their quarterback, probably the best in the States. He committed,
by the way, been.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
No, he's not committed. I talked to him, Trent Cebourne.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
You, oh yeah, Trent.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Yeah, And fully a couple of weeks ago he got
re offered by Alabama.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Good.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
He's still only a junior. I believe that I know
this guy has I've figured it up the other the
other week. He's now he's already started as going into
his junior year thirty one games. He started thirty one games.
He has the potential to start if they if they
play all four sixty you know, this year and next

(12:47):
year fifty nine.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
I think, I oh, if he plays thirty thirty.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
More games they play if he plays going into his
junior year, So if they were to make the championship
game both years, and that's no guarantee, Yeah, he was
not getting He wouldn't injured any of those games he
would play. He would start fifty nine games at the
class seven of them.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Gosh, that's what I was going to be more on you.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
I don't know that you would ever. I don't see
anybody ever breaking that record.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
I don't have to be you know, I don't need it.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
Now. You know, maybe maybe on the lower levels you'd
have you have some people that start a lot of
games because they're less players, and they may start earlier
that earlier in their career, but you know they're going
to be loaded again. He's got Mark's got a big
tight end, he likes. I talked to him at in Foley,
Mark and he, you know, he said he never really
had a big, a big tight end like this. So

(13:41):
I think it's going to be a different type offense.
Of course, he's got multiple receivers. I think they'll be
better than they were last year. They start out with
Carver Montgomery. That's another good game on that on that
they play on that Thursday, I think August twenty first,
and then they and then they got to go play
Grace and Georgia the next week. So we'll know pretty

(14:01):
quickly how how good they're going to be. But I
think they'll be. You know, they lost with three games
last year and I think they were all by one
point and all in overtime, which I look back on there.
I think in Seaborne's tenure, I think he's lost five
games and they were by combined like eight points.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
Yeah, it's not I mean a lot of them. I
think several went over time too, I.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
Think so, So yeah, they'll be there. I mean they'll
be there. I mean, I think Pike Road has a
chance to have a really good team again under Granger ship.
They've been contender the last couple of years. You would
expect Montgomery Catholic to fall off some with Kirk leaving
and with the quarterback leaving after after it's good as
they had a lot last five or six years, like

(14:46):
I said, I think Benjamin Russell will take a big
step forward. You know, I like I like Opal Laca,
I like what they're doing there, uh with coach Moore.
So it'll be interesting to see. There'll be some there'll
be some new get new teams as well. That uh,
that that emerged. It's gonna be interesting to see what
Ronnie Costell does at t R Miller. You know, they

(15:08):
were a few points from making the championship game last
year under coach Hubbard. Uh, so we'll see, we'll see
what he does there. So those are just off the
top of my head. There, those are some kind of
questions I have going into.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
The year, some good questions. Ben There's no doubt about it.
And I can't wait. And we can follow your articles
every day with ail dot com, can't we.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yeah, we're writing a lot of stuff. We actually just
started a thing just today. We'll get some We've hired
a couple of national guys I haven't uh, and they're
doing these surveys and today they did a thirt you know,
we're we're now publishing the results of those surveys, and
so today the first one is online to Top six

(15:50):
A running backs and these are what the what the
coaches responded to. So there'll be a bunch of you'll
see a bunch of those stories on al dot com
in the coming weeks, not just football, but Bill eventually
hit volleyball and the other fall sports as well. So
we're doing that. We're gonna I think we're gonna release
our a list tomorrow of our top fifteen senior seniors.

(16:11):
So we got a lot of I hope a lot
of good stuff on the horizon.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
Good all right, Ben, always good to talk to you.
I hope everything's good with you. Take care of yourself
and we'll haul it next Monday.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
All right, it's that they're not there with you.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yeah, sit over here, Ben, just as quiet as it
can be, brazier. He ain't said nothing, Jeff.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
And you know it's good to hear from you and
everything that you bring every Monday. But you know, are
you going to.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Braise the horrible Ben? He's in bad jais.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
Oh my gosh, I need to come back on another
day to talk about that.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
But yeah, at least you a little bit better talk
to you facts.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
You know, I hadn't hit the panic button yet. I
think we now, don't We just we're gonna recharge there.
And this comment, what Ben if you haven't hit it yet, Jeff,
you ain't ever going to well, you know, Americans team
is gonna pull it out.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
You ain't gonnahead it.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
Let's see, you ain't gonna hit it.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
Ben, take care of you.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, I get tired of watching them go uh oh
for eleven with a runner of score and position.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
Oh gosh, there's no doubt.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
Ben.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
Thank you for what you do.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
Bud, take care of you.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
God bless you. Got it. Ben Thomas with ail dot com.
You can catch him