By Charles Prince

The North Jefferson News



Perhaps no football team in the state of Alabama had a big a turnaround this season as the Fultondale Wildcats did this fall. Fultondale, which had won only four games during the three-year span of 2004-06, won seven games this year and advanced to the state playoffs for the first time since 2002.

“We’d like to still be playing,” Fultondale head coach Keith Register said. “We wanted to get the first playoff win for our school in a while, but when you look back on it, we had a great year. After going 3-7 last year, and 1-9 the year before, going 7-4 and reaching the playoffs was a great, great season for us.”

The Wildcats got off to a fast start this fall, as they opened the campaign by scoring 70 points in a win over Shades Mountain Christian. The win served notice, the Wildcats were a contender for the 2A playoffs. They continued to win and climbed as high as No. 6 in the Alabama Sports Writers Association High School Football Poll.

The seven wins were the most in five seasons for Fultondale.

The Wildcats Wing-T offense was powered by a senior quarterback and three sophomore running backs. All told, the Wildcats ran for more than 3,000 yards this season. Fullback Johnathan Craig led the North Jefferson area with 1,257 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns on the ground.

Chris Barber added 660 more yards, followed by C.J. Mixon with just over 500 yards. LaKendrick Smith and Chris Hardaway both finished with more than 250 years each.

Smith added more than 400 yards passing to the attack, which averaged 34.3 points per game this season, after scoring only 98 points total in the 2006 season.

One candidate to replace Smith next season, freshman Carlos Johnson stepped in after Smith was injured in the West Blocton game. The game experience he received this year could pay dividends in the future.

Leading the way for the offense, was a young line, including junior Garrett Godsey, sophomore Michael Owens, junior Cody Hatcher and freshman Christian McCollough.

On the other side of the ball, Wildcat defenders were adept at creating turnovers. Four times this year, the Fultondale defense forced at least four turnovers.

The defensive line applied plenty of pressure on opposing quarterbacks all year. Sophomore Cortez Edison and freshman Christian McCollough led the North Jefferson area with 9.5 quarterback sacks each. Seven different Wildcats had at least one sack, as the club averaged nearly three sacks per game.

Other members of the defensive line who will return next season, include juniors Jared and Julin Anderson.

Due in large part to the turnovers they caused, and because of sitting out time during several blowout wins this year, the defenders didn’t have large enough tackle totals to finish the season among the leaders in the North Jefferson area. However, the Wildcat defense held the opposition to less than 16 points per game.

Next spring, Register and his coaching staff will have to find a few new starters, including replacements for exchange-student kicker Chris Carlsen, quarterback Smith, center/defensive tackle J.D. Hood, tight end/linebacker Jordan Fowler and split end Ryan Randall.

“We’re going to have a hard time replacing some of our key seniors,” Register said. “LaKendrick did a great job of running the offense and keeping us in the right plays. He played well the whole year. J.D. had to play both ways and he did a great job in the trenches for us. Jordan, he’s a hard worker and he was really the emotional leader of our club. We’ll won’t have an easy time replacing any of them.”

Register pointed out the bright side of his club had only a few senior starters this year—the fact that Wildcat coaches will be working with a very experienced club when spring practice opens next year.

“I’m looking forward to the future,” Register said. “These kids never gave up when things went against them, they just kept fighting and playing hard. You can’t ask for more from your players than that. I’m tremendously proud of these kids for turning this into a playoff team.”

Register said his club came very close to still being alive in the playoffs this week.

“We talked about the year on the bus ride back last Friday,” he said. “Six or eight plays, if they had gone our way, we’d be 11-0 and still playing instead of 7-4. We were in every game we played this year. It was that close to being even better.”