Michael A. Lough: Expect another classic with Houston County and Northside

At Houston County and Northside, the players and coaches will talk about not looking ahead and taking care of business, one game at a time.

They might admit that part of their brains couldn't help but have some reserved space about this Friday night.

Those of us who don't have such worries can freely admit to looking ahead to this Friday night.

On one sideline is No. 1, the program, the defending region and state champ, that is the poster child for good old smashmouth football.

On the other sideline is the rising program, with an SEC-bound quarterback and defensive back and a fairly wide-open pass-oriented offense that racks up yards and points.

And for a series that is led by one team 17-0, this is a full-blown rivalry. In this case, you can throw out that series record, because there's little love going on between Green Street and Highway 96.

So we have intensity, contrasting styles and two teams that easily could have played a second game late in the playoffs last year meeting up with region bragging rights on the line.

Who said time doesn't sometimes stand still? Kickoff can't get here fast enough for everyone involved.

An issue for the four local Class AAAAA teams -- don't forget about Warner Robins -- is that when they're not brawling with each other in either the smashsmouth game, the air-it-out battle or the contrasting schemes contest, they're beating up on the teams from Augusta. So to an extent, none of us -- and the coaches admit it -- has the full idea of who these teams are.

Three of them have a real chance to get to Atlanta for a championship game, two because they've broadened offensive horizons, and one because it just knows how to get there.

The Bears' loss to the Greyhounds very easily could be the game that lifts Houston County to a semifinal or final trip. And for the same reason, it can be equally helpful for Jones County, which learned things in the game, too.

The ability to be diverse is huge unless you have five Power-5 conference linemen and a Division I collection of defensive linemen and linebackers. The ability to do more than one thing is the big-picture key, while the refusal to do so leads to a season that might end earlier than it should. And then there's Northside, a winner of 20 straight games, that kind of blows up that theory.

All that aside, well, I've been a little amped for this game for weeks, just like last year.

That doesn't deter from watching Veterans, West Laurens, Mary Persons and Howard the past few weeks. Howard opened my aging eyes, and I'm more sold on Mary Persons now than a month ago. And West Laurens-Mary Persons and Macon County-Lamar County are likely to be tremendous games Friday that would otherwise inspire a pretty good level of anticipation from this seat in the game operations center.

But it's hard not to get mighty jacked with No. 1 vs. No. 6, old school and new school, different parts of the city and county -- factions that aren't necessarily on the same page.

Plus, they're just hard-working teams, more blue-collar players than elite players, kids you just really like watching play high school football because that's what they're about. Nobody's really thinking about signing day.

Last year's game was just fabulous. It could have run it as a "Friday Night Lights" episode.

Expect nothing less Friday.

Contact Michael A. Lough at 744-4626 or mlough@macon.com

This story was originally published November 4, 2015 at 8:59 PM with the headline "Michael A. Lough: Expect another classic with Houston County and Northside ."