Liberty ready for physical showdown with Jefferson Forest

Tonight’s clash between Bedford County and Seminole District rivals Jefferson Forest and Liberty promises to be as physical a football game as ever, unless the flu bug that has hit both high schools hard this week takes its toll.

“We’ll see what we’ve got when we line up (tonight),” Liberty coach Chris Watts said. “Every team I’ve talked to this week has had some issue (with the flu), some places worse than others. It’s unfortunate, because you’d like to put your best kids in there. Hopefully, we have enough kids who are healthy.”

The confrontation on the field is usually cutthroat.

“It’s a smashmouth kind of game,” Watts said. “It’s very even. It’s going to come down to who wants it more … whichever team is more physical.”

Watts rarely has any trouble motivating his players for this contest.

“It’s one of those games you don’t have to say a lot,” he said. “You show up and play.”

Emotionally, the intensity level will be playoff-like.

“You have to control your emotions, (and not) let them make you undisciplined in making your reads,” Watts said. “We want to play disciplined football.”

Liberty (6-1, 2-1 Seminole) is in excellent position for the playoffs, ranked third in the state among Group AA, Division 3 schools.

“We need to keep winning so we can stay there,” Watts said. “It’s a matter of staying healthy and playing hard and seeing what happens.”

Forest (4-2, 2-0), which went to the postseason for the first time in 10 years last fall, faces a much tougher task in making the Division 4 cut, placing higher stakes on tonight’s game.

“Everyone’s looking at playoff points now,” JF coach Don Rice said. “Every game’s important.”

The Cavaliers are coming off a 46-21 rout of Rustburg in which quarterback Hunter Hannell connected with Colby Rhodes and Harrison Loy on touchdown passes of 57 and 49 yards, respectively, and Rashad Hall rushed for his fifth straight 100-yard game since a season-opening loss to Northside.

“For the most part, we’ve played very good defense throughout the season and each week our offense gets better,” Rice said. “We’re a very multiple I team and what we do on offense varies from week to week.”

Liberty, meanwhile, has its running game clicking as usual.

“That’s what they do, the Maryland I, and they run it very well,” Rice said. “Their kids believe in it. We know what we have to do to stop it. It’s a matter of us going out and executing it (tonight).”

The Minutemen have the ability to shift to a spread attack as needed, with Anthony Reynolds, who has nursed a wrist injury in recent weeks, taking over for Tyler Bowyer out of the shotgun.