Rivalry week is here.

The Blazers are fired up to take on GSC top ranked West Alabama under the lights Saturday night at 7 p.m. in Bazemore-Hyder stadium.

“This is the best team in the Gulf South Conference and we’re going to have to play them that way,” Coach Dean, the Blazer’s head coach, said.

Saturday will be the Blazers chance to prove they deserve the preseason vote of confidence to win the conference.

Emotions will play a large part in this game as Coach Dean has been having full contact practices with a lot of intensity to stop West Alabama running back Matt Willis.

“He’s just on a different level than these guys,” Dean said.

The Tigers have certainly proved their skill as they rushed for 353 yards last game and had both of their dual threat quarterbacks, Gary Johnston and Kyle Caldwell, run for two TDs.

With their run first, pass second mentality the Tigers rely heavily on their power backs to move the ball.

“If we can stop the run and force them to throw then we can definitely have the advantage,” Ryan Smith, Blazers senior linebackers, said.

The Blazers do not want to repeat the same performance where they lost the last three games of the season.

“A lot of mistakes were made last year and that was our fault because we weren’t prepared,” Smith said. “This year I feel like the coaches came up with a good game plan and I feel we cannot have the same incident we did last
year.”

Dean has emphasized good hard tackling.

The Blazer’s offense is just as loaded however, rushing for 683 yards this season, and averaging 227 rushing yards per game.

Junior quarterback Cayden Cochran, has not thrown a single interception this whole season.

Cochran has been focusing on being more calm and patient with the ball in his hands and watching last year’s 22-21 win over UWA is speeds up the preparation process.

“I’ve been watching film of that game all week trying to improve on some of those mistakes,” Cochran said.

Get ready for 3 yard in a cloud of dust game, as this one will be a knockout brawl to the end.