GOOD HOPE, Alabama – Football season is upon us and all of our local teams are gearing up for another season on the field. Good Hope will see Alan Scott enter his 10th season.th season as the Raiders’ head coach, and he will bring experience on both sides of the ball this year. Scott saw a lot of encouraging things from his team during the spring game and during summer practice, and he’s excited to see their hard work pay off when they get going later this month.
“Most of our offensive and defensive returners were starters last year,” Scott said. “We want to be competitive more than anything. In the spring game, we played Fyffe and Vinemont in both halves. I thought our guys played really well. It was a good opportunity for us to play against a really good opponent. They didn’t let up, and from a defensive standpoint, I was really pleased with our effort, our intensity and our tackling. All summer we just tried to get bigger, faster, stronger, do all the little things right and help ourselves be ready to be competitive this fall.”
Scott added:
“Fyffe has been kind of the benchmark in high school football for the last 10 years. Coach Benefield and I have been friends for a long time and we finally got the game together. We had a little bit of a misunderstanding, so we played them in the spring,” Scott said. “We’re actually going to play four quarters against them next week. We played them for one half. We played one quarter against the first team and it was 7-0. Then we played one quarter against the second team and it was 7-0, so I thought our guys held their own with them.”
Good Hope will be in a new region this year and the schedule will bring some new challenges for the Raiders.
“We’ve been there the last few years with Oneonta, Cherokee County and Etowah and they moved us west. Dora, Cordova, Curry, Fayette County, Hamilton, Haleyville and Fultondale have stayed with us, so it’s interesting. Some teams have moved up from 3A and a lot of those teams in our region have played each other the last few years, so we’re kind of the new kids on the block,” Scott said. “I see a lot of parity in our region. In the offseason, I really tried to watch a lot of film that I could get my hands on of the opponents we’ll have this fall. They’re well coached. The programs all have great history, so I think it’s going to be a real battle to get out there and get a playoff spot.”
One of Good Hope’s assistant coaches, Taft Dillashaw, was inducted into the Cullman County Sports Hall of Fame this summer, and Scott talked about how much Dillashaw meant to his own football career as a player and coach.
“I played football in junior high in 1991 or 1992, and Taft was there. He had been there, you know? That wasn’t his first year. All I know about Good Hope football is that he was involved in it,” Scott said. “He coached me there. He coached me through high school. He was really hard on me, but I love him. Really. He was really hard on me, but he tried to get everything he could out of me. When I became a coach, as a young coach, he was a guy I called. As a defensive coordinator, if there was something I hadn’t seen yet, he and I would try to figure out what it was together. When I was at Vinemont, there was no team I wanted to beat more than Taft and Good Hope, but now that I’m at Good Hope, I’m thankful that I’ve been able to work with him in my current role for the last 10 years. He’s just a blessing.”
Coach Scott has seen the seniors and juniors take on leadership roles during the preseason and he likes how the younger players have followed their example.
“So far, it’s going well. We try to emphasize leadership at Good Hope and we’ve been doing that since I’ve been there. Each team selects seven young men to represent the team and Hank Hudson and Tyler Cone will be two of them representing the team,” Scott said. “They’ve done a great job of making sure these young guys know how it’s done and they keep the expectations and standards high so they don’t slack off. The young guys follow well, too.”
Two of the seniors on this year’s team, Hank Hudson and Tyler Cone, feel like the team has truly accomplished the goals it set for itself this season and are excited to see what they can accomplish together.
“When we come to work, we know what we want to do,” Cone said. “We all have a goal and everyone follows the leaders. So we want to be good leaders that the young people look up to. That’s what we like to have.”
“Coach Scott did a really good job this summer of teaching us how to be leaders, especially during our two-day training camp. I felt like everyone was doing a good job of guiding the younger players, and I think everyone has bought in and knows what we want to do this year,” Hudson said. “Before games, we like to listen to music to get ourselves pumped up a little bit. Usually, all the coaches give a pregame talk about the scheme right after, then Coach Scott fires us up. Then we say a quick prayer and go out and play the game.”
Good Hope Raiders Football Schedule 2024
August 30 – @ West Point
September 6 – against Fultondale*
September 13th – @Haleyville*
September 20 – @Cordova*
September 27 – against Addison
October 4 – @ Curry*
October 11 – against Hamilton*
October 18 – @ Fayette County*
25 October – against Dora*
November 1 – against Fairview
*Regional game
Copyright 2024 Humble Roots, LLC. All rights reserved.
