One-on-One interview with Southern Guilford Football Coach Darryl Brown(Big game with NG Friday night)

Southern Guilford(11-1) at Northern Guilford(12-0) in Round Three of the NCHSAA 3-AA playoffs tomorrow night….

The Storm meet the Nighthawks in history-making contest and we spoke with Southern Guilford head football coach Darryl Brown this morning and got his thoughts about the BIG Game…

Andy Durham Physically your guys should be ready, how do you get them prepared mentally and emotionally, how do you keep the Storm down to earth and focused?

Coach Brown:We have come ready to play every week and it does not matter who we are playing, our kids will be prepared and they have not been focusing on all the hoopla build-up of the game, they are focusing on winning and we believe we can win this ball game….

Andy Durham:On the offensive end, can your team cancel out the strong effort that is on the way again this week, from T.J. Logan of Northern?

Coach Brown:We have two outstanding backs(Malik Moseley and Reggie Gallaspy) and we have experience up front with 6 of 7 key lineman being seniors….Not real big up front with our largest lineman at 6’2/250, but we do average out to around 220-225 pounds per man up front…

Andy Durham:The defensive approach to Logan, Northern is more than just T.J. Logan, but he’s a load, how do you load up to stop him??? Do you have one man(or even two men) shadow him all night long(Go with him everywhere he goes), or do you grab him and hang on till help arrives?

Coach Brown:We need to run to the ball and we have to know where he is at all times, but we have to play the same way we have all season long, we just have to line up and play the same, but we will have some new wrinkles that we can use, cause we do know that everything that Northern does, does go through T.J. Logan….We feel confident about what our kids at Southern have done this season and what they will be doing on Friday night at Northern…

Andy Durham:69-0 and 43-0, with Northern shutting out their first two playoff opponents decisively, how do you get on the board vs. the Nighthawks?

Coach Brown:It’s a challenge, but we believe in our kids and we feel that they will be up to the challenge…We have to get our backs in place and give them some space and trust the offense to our quarterback’s leadership and put the push in the hands of our offensive line up front…Get some first downs, find mid-field and then begin to dig deeper and get deeper into Northern territory….We have been a ‘big play’ team this season, but it will be tough to get ‘big plays’ against Northern…Their defense is that tough, but we have to make a dent in their defense and keep working the ball upfield…..Must keep our defense off the field and let our offense develop some sustained drives….The more you have the ball, the more you can drive it toward the end zone and that is place we have to get to, the scoring starts there….

Andy Durham:On the ‘Storm Nation’, is the Southern Guilford fan base ready to join you and your team out on Spencer-Dixon Road, on Friday night?

Coach Brown:Our students and parents, they will be there…There has been a lot of talk about this game at school and in our community this week and we will have support, but our players are taking this one like any other game…The team knows that they have to be prepared and the rest will take care of itself…We will be ready come Friday and on some of the history of this game, Coach Brown said he was 1 year old back in 1979, when his grandfather, the legendary C.K. Siler, took a Southern Guilford team to Round Three of the playoffs and that team, Southern Guilford Indians back then, was just one game away from the 3-A State Championship contest……

Coach Brown also told us that this Southern Guilford team has tied that 1979 team for most wins in a season, with 11 and that the ’79 Southern team ran off 11 wins in a-row before falling in Round Three….

Coach Brown also told us that Malik Moseley, #22 for the Storm and the holder of right at 2,500 rushing yards on the season, to go along with 30-plus TD’s, Coach Brown said that Moseley is a lot like T.J. Logan from Northern, in that the SG Storm will line Moseley up in many different positions on Friday night…Moseley will be at runningback, maybe he’ll move to the slot back spot, he could be at wide receiver, you might see him line up in the Wildcat position, you might see him at just about any spot on the field, just like Logan from Northern Guilford….Coach Brown also noted that you will see Moseley and Reggie Gallaspy(#25) on the field together 75% of the time….As split backs, one at back the other in the slot, one at back, the other at WR, etc…..

We are going to have a load to keep an eye on come Friday night at Northern and with Logan, Moseley and Gallaspy all out there, we might see some numbers coming up BIG from #’s 8, 22 and 25….

Chances are those defenses will be tuned up and this will be a question of whose defense can stop the other team…..The defenses need to have their shoes tied tight and their helments strapped on securely for this game, it will be a battle…Almost like the ‘Civilized War’ coming up tomorrow night, just across the Spencer-Dixon Line(Road), when the South meets the North in this 2012 epic war…..

We have had BIG Games in the past, with Ragsdale at Dudley on Lincoln Street, why not continue this Song of the South vs. the North, this Friday night and if this game is as good as some of those Ragsdale-Dudley skirmishes in the past, we might need to rent the Coliseum over on Lee Street, for a special Post-War Celebration where all wishes would be Granted, with a land grant to take your team on to Round Four of the NCHSAA playoffs….

History is about to made, see you on Spencer-Dixon Road, tomorrow night….