New coach, new year for Cedartown Bulldogs

It's a new beginning for the Cedartown Bulldogs this Friday night.

After months of waiting, fans will get to crowd the stands of Memorial Stadium as the annual rivalry i s r enewed with Rockmart on Friday night with kickoff at 7:30 p.m., and when they look down at the sidelines they'll see a new face at the helm.

Bulldogs head coach Doyle Kelley is stepping onto Doc Ayers Field for the first time in his leadership role of the football program, and he has one mission in mind: winning.

Kelley and his squad have been through the spring training, the summer workouts, and the camps away in Pickens and Whitfield Counties.

Now the team is ready to step up and show what they have to offer.

“Well I don't call us a team, I tell them that we are a family and that we all going to lean on each other,” said Kelley. “We feel extremely good on what we’ve got going on here over the summer in terms of the boys and the coaching staff.”

Returning to the lineup as starting quarterback for his final year is Trevon Wofford, who as threeyear starter has seen his own ups and downs throughout the past few years with the Bulldogs.

Wofford was ready to play when the Bulldogs traveled on Aug. 4 to East Ridge, Tenn., to take on their high school's team, the Pioneers. He was the first to find holes in the defense and run for a 70plus yard touchdown in the opening quarter of the Bulldogs' road scrimmage.

Backing him up on both sides of the ball is Steven Howard, Cruz Rodriguez and Joseph Gibbons, who Kelley said all had a stellar summer in the weight room and conditioning for the season.

Others who are hoping to make a big impact are Tony Mathis Jr., w ho was selected as a pre-season all state on special teams for recruitgeorgia.com's Class AAAA list. Colby Prior is also set to make an impact on defense for the Bulldogs this year as well, Kelley said.

The only question Kelley still had in his mind following the first win - even though it doesn't count in the books - over the Pioneers. He still needed to know whether his special teams will be prepared for when the Yellow Jackets come to call this week.

He said too that his team still needed to improve in areas after he got to watch is first batch of film earlier in the month ahead of the Model scrimmage held after the Pigskin Preview's press time on Aug. 11.

Among those areas of improvement he wanted to see was offensive tackling assignments being better covered, and continued conditioning for the season ahead. He also wants his defense to work on getting turnovers on opposing offenses and having the chance to score themselves, which the Bulldogs didn't get to do at all during the scrimmage against the Pioneers.

Even still, he said the defense stepped up in a big way to hold East Ridge scoreless.

"It was nice getting to go up against someone other than ourselves," Kelley said. we’ve been practicing hard against each other, and it was time to show off what we're capable of doing on the field. I think we did that."

Kelley enters his first season as head coach of the Bulldogs with a unofficial win under his belt. His hopes are that it's an opening sign of improvement for Cedartown, who ended the season at 5-5 with a 2- 4 record and missed the playoffs in their final season under now CHS principal Scott Hendrix.

Bulldogs fans will at least get to start the regular season at home following the second road scrimmage this Friday night. Cedartown hosts Rockmart for the annual Battle of Polk County ri- valry game on Aug. 18 at 7:30 p.m.

Cedartown then hosts the Battle of the Borders games against Piedmont and Cherokee High Schools in Alabama.

Game times start at 5:30 p.m. with the first game to be played by Rockmart and Piedmont, following which the Bulldogs go up against Cherokee County somewhere around 8 p.m., depending on how long the first game takes according to Kelley.

“The first real big game is our rivals and just like