Last year, in week two of the 2016 season, the Twiggs County Cobras traveled over to Booster Stadium and opened up their season with a 24-17 win over the Toombs County Bulldogs. The Cobras had a tall quarterback, a bruising fullback and a very fast wing back and all contributed to the victory.
On Friday night at 7:30, on Y-101 (The Bulldog Pregame Show begins at 7) and streamed on Mixlr, in the rematch between the two teams back in the Pit all three of those key Cobras have moved on. The quarterback and the fullback graduated and Javoris Smith, a 5-8, 155 senior, transferred to Southwest Macon. In 2016 Smith ran for 1023 yards on 117 carries averaging 8.7 per carry and he caught 22 passes for 487 yards.
Against the Bulldogs, Smith opened the scoring with a 77-yard touchdown run with 10:29 to play in the first quarter. Then later in the quarter Smith ran 58 yards down to the Bulldog 10 and senior fullback Ja’mon Height finished the drive with a five-yard touchdown with 2:21 to left in the first quarter.
The new skill position players are quarterback (#1) Seth Bloodworth (6-0 180 senior) and running backs (21) Devonte Glover (5-8 170 senior) (4) Carnez Veal (5-10 170 sophomore) and (7) Titonio Smith (5-7 sophomore).
New Cobra head coach Zackery Harris has always been a defensive coach. He was promoted from defensive coordinator to head coach and this season he is working with the offense. “We’re young, we replace a lot of guys,” Harris said. “Last year we finished with 29 kids and 15 of those graduated. So, we have a lot of young guys. We work hard. I don’t think were gonna fall off too much from last year. On defense we should be pretty good. We lost a lot of experience. On thing we can do is run and that is what we are going to hang our hat on. We can get to the ball. Last year we were a little bigger up front. What we lose in size we make up with our ability to escape and get to the ball carrier.”
In 2016 Twiggs County went 8-4 beating Marion County 46-0 in the first round of the playoffs before losing to Manchester 39-18.
The Bulldogs had a real good day of practice on Tuesday and took a step backwards on Wednesday as they prepared for the Cobras. “Much like last year they run the Wing-T on offense and a 3-3-5 on defense,” Toombs County head coach Richie Marsh said. “Last year we didn’t expect them to come in there and do what they did to us when they beat us. We expect it to be a barn burner. It is their first game and our second game and last year they came in with a lot more excitement and played harder than us for four quarters. So, we just got to make sure we go out and prepare for the game and be excited about playing the game and understand that we have got to execute and take care of things to be the football team that we continue to grind to be.”
Twiggs County Roster
| Name | Position | Grade | ||
| 1 | Seth Bloodworth | 1 | QB/LB/P | 12 |
| 2 | Thomas Curry | 2 | TE/LB | 12 |
| 4 | Carnez Veal | 3 | WB/LB | 10 |
| 6 | Mustapha Muhammed | 4 | WR/CB | 12 |
| 7 | Titonio Smith | 5 | HB/CB/OLB/K | 10 |
| 9 | Decorius Brown | 6 | WR/FS | 11 |
| 10 | Tykendrick Quainton | 7 | WR/CB | 12 |
| 12 | Shelton Williams | 8 | HB/CB | 10 |
| 14 | James Sanders | 9 | HB/FS | 10 |
| 20 | Javaria Lawson | 10 | WB/CB/LB | 12 |
| 21 | Devonta Glover | 11 | HB/FS | 12 |
| 23 | Jeremy Curtis | 12 | WR/CB | 10 |
| 24 | Antonius Burney | 13 | WR/CB | 10 |
| 30 | Jamie Macallum | 14 | WR/OLB | 10 |
| 32 | Chuckie Stephens | 15 | FB/LB | 9 |
| 33 | Jadeldrick Stephens | 16 | TE/LB | 12 |
| 40 | Gabriel Barfield | 17 | FB/LB | 9 |
| 44 | Ramello Sherman | 18 | FB/LB | 10 |
| 45 | Joshua Coley | 19 | WR/LB | 11 |
| 51 | Roland Brown | 20 | OL/DL | 10 |
| 52 | Zarek Burney | 21 | OL/DL | 10 |
| 55 | Zaion Stephens | 22 | OL/DE/LB | 12 |
| 56 | Tyquez Martin | 23 | OL/LB | 10 |
| 57 | Shantavius Rouse | 24 | OL/DL | 12 |
| 58 | Isiah Lewis | 25 | OL/DL | 10 |
| 60 | Markel Carswell | 26 | OL/DL | 12 |
| 72 | Kendarius Allen | 27 | OL/DL | 10 |
| 70 | Randy Couchman | 28 | OL/DL | 11 |
| 84 | Marquez Carswell | 29 | TE/LB | 10 |