By Christian Malone

The Valdosta Daily Times

VALDOSTA — Valwood’s football team returns home tonight to host longtime rival Brookwood at 7:30 p.m. at Goddard Field.

The Valiants have only played once at home this year, and are looking forward to finally wearing their home uniforms again.

“We’ve had one home game so far, but we’re about to have three in a row at home, and four of our next six,” Valwood head coach Brannon Tidwell said. “We’re looking forward to playing at home and getting our fans out there to watch us. Hopefully we’ll put it all together (tonight).”

Valwood is coming off of a bye last Friday. Tidwell says the team had a good off week.

“Our bye week came at a good time for us,” Valwood’s first-year head coach said. “We had a good week of practice. We got healthy. We’re going from 17 kids (two weeks ago against Robert Toombs) to 21 this week. It’s nice to have everybody back except for (juniors Rob Blanton and Blake Young), who are out for the season.”

Two players who are returning from injuries this week are nose tackle Jeremy Jones and linebacker John Akins. Tidwell says having them back will definitely help the defense. Tidwell expects a battle from Brookwood tonight, despite the fact that the Warriors are 0-4.

“Brookwood plays hard. They’re big up front, and physical. They fight. They play as a unit. They’ve got a good coach, Robert East, who’s a defensive guy,” Tidwell said. “Their middle linebacker (Chance Harvin) is their best player. He also lines up at fullback. Their wingbacks are good runners. Their right tackle (Kyle Porter) is about (6-foot-4, 280 pounds), and he’s a good player.”

Brookwood has switched from the spread to the wing-T this year.

“They run a wing-T offense. They also get in a two-tight wishbone and run the midline and the veer,” Tidwell said. “They’ve had a different wrinkle every week.”

Brookwood quarterback Kevin Hudson has a broken right hand, and won’t be under center tonight. He will, however, be playing defense and special teams, with a cast on his hand.

The Warriors use a 3-3 stack defense, and Tidwell says they like to move around and hit people. Valwood and Brookwood scrimmaged in the preseason, but Tidwell says both teams are a lot better now than they were then.

Tidwell says that in order for his team to have a chance to win tonight, they have to play well in all phases of the game.

“We can win, but we have to play four quarters,” he said. “We’ve got to play a good game. We can’t have any turnovers. We’ve got to be mistake-free. We’ve got to tackle; Coach (Brad) Alligood does a good job with the scheme.”