After two summer 7-on-7 tournaments at Troy and West Alabama, the Reeltown Rebels football team already looks to be in postseason form.
Earlier in the summer the Rebels were a game out of the championship at Troy and last week were crowned the champs at West Alabama. At any given time, Reeltown is deploying units where guys play both ways the entire time during games, but that has slowed the team one bit.
Looking to avenge its 2A state title runner-up finish from last season, head coach Matt Johnson’s team has learned to compete with some of the state’s best and biggest schools. And done well.
“I felt really good about it all,” Johnson said. “Troy was the first big tournament some of our guys experienced, so it was a learning curve. The pace of play we had to get used to. Getting used to pace was the biggest thing and that has helped us in many ways.”
Taking to the fields at Troy was the first time Reeltown got to deploy its new full-time weapons like quarterback Jamarkius Smith and running back Traylen Roberts. Even for returners like Finn Henderson, the camps are great ways of gauging competition levels with well over a month before the season.
ABove all, competing in high octane tournaments gives the coaching staff the best built-in condition program around.
“There is no better way of conditioning than what our guys are going through in these things,” Johnson said. “It is nonstop conditioning and competing at a very high level. We have gotten a lot better and have improved in those areas more than anything else.”
At West Alabama, Reeltown was pitted in the “big school” division due to the overall number of teams competing despite being just a 2A program. That distinction was welcomed by Johnson, who got to see his team compete against 4- 5- and 6A teams from Mississippi.
“I was perfectly fine with that because it's more adversity, different competition,” Johnson said. “Our guys really competed.”
Reeltown started play around 11 on West Alabama’s turf field. The blue and white were then forced to play four consecutive games, the only school that had to do so.
“I knew we would compete and would fare well, but the grueling and nonstop play concerned me a bit,” Johnson said. “But I was extremely pleased.”
Despite the heat and adverse schedule, Reeltown went 4-0 and earned the top seed in bracket play plus a first round bye. The lunch and bye breaks gave Reeltown the boost it needed to run the gauntlet and finish as champions.
“It was survival of the fittest at the end and our guys pushed through,” Johnson said. “The longer we went, the better we got. It was a great day for us from the standpoint of competing and overcoming the elements.”
While the skill players were running up and down the field, Johnson and the coaching staff also took a swath of offensive and defensive lineman to compete.
“They did really well,” Johnson said. “While we were doing 7-on-7s, they were doing fundamental stuff, really just wearing them down to look at them competing while they were tired.”
Arguably the most important aspect of the football team to have developed over the summer is the confidence Smith has in his cannon arm, and his pinpoint accuracy.
In the about 15 games Reeltown has played, Smith has only thrown a pair of interceptions and both came at West Alabama.
“He has really grown,” Johnson said. “The growth he had during the baseball season has just carried on. He is competing at a high level and having a lot of fun at the same time. He has done a great job.”
As for Roberts, looking to fill the full-time shoes of Arthur Woods, he has taken to the role well and has beefed up his body to better suit his workload.
“He is working his tail off,” Johnson said. “His body is starting to really transform and we are expecting huge things out of him.”
Johnson put his team through it over the summer. At the end of July, they will go through the ringer once more when the school’s Iron Man competition begins.
It is all to better the team in the hopes of finally capturing that state championship ring. The Rebels didn’t fully realize their accomplishment at West Alabama until after their championship win. That is when Johnson told his team just how impressive they are already in the month of July.
“You tell them after the fact,” Johnson said. “They understand why we work out at the times we work out and what we do. We put them in the heat for a reason. That is part of the process and part of our program. I commend them for it.”