Bay and Rutherford face a football rivalry showdown on Friday

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) – The Diego’s Burrito Factory High School Football Game of the Week this week centers on the game between rivals Bay and Rutherford at Chapman Field on Friday. These two Bay County schools first met in 1963 and have been feuding ever since. Let’s start with the Rams. Coach Albert Floyd is in his second season running this program. The team only went 2-8 last season, and until a few weeks ago things were very difficult again. Although Rutherford played well in some early games, he was at six by the start of Week 7. Then came a win at Port St. Joe, followed by a win at North Bay Haven. A tough one-point loss at Bozeman followed. Still, there is a lot of excitement ahead of Friday’s rivalry game. As Coach Floyd says, at this point it’s about winning, not moral victories.

“I think that’s the motto for the parents, for the kids.” Coach Floyd tells me. “Everyone wants to win. Especially for our boys who have had a hard-fought season where you come up short and sometimes win. The few wins against Port, St. Joe and North Bay Haven alone helped morale. The morale in training was good, the morale was up, but you could still see people saying, “Oh man, we’re close, but here we go again.” So those two wins were good for the kids . Our boys love each other and really enjoy being together. So we have no blame. So when we got that actual victory, those two wins, everyone was able to prepare for it and feel good about it together. Everyone has a part to play in these victories.

As for the Tornadoes, they enter this long-standing rivalry with a record of 3-5. Maybe not great on the surface, but two of those three wins over Pensacola and West Florida gave Bay the title in their three-team 3A district. So Bay with a guaranteed playoff spot in hand. They are now working on improving their playoff position. The 41-31 loss at Walton last week hurt things a bit.

“You know, after such a tough away loss, we’re the away team, but we’re still at home and we still don’t have to travel,” said Bay head coach Jeremy Brown. “I don’t think we have to do much to motivate the boys. You were already in a group chat with the coaches and the position groups over the weekend. I’m already watching the film preparing for Rutherford. It’s been a big rivalry game since I was in school. Even when I coached at Rutherford for two years in the late 90s. It’s always been a great rivalry and that’s why we’re looking forward to being there on Friday night.”

“It will be what everyone expects of high intensity and real chippy,” adds coach Floyd. “I’m pretty sure these guys are ready to engage with us and show us that they’re up for this rivalry. They know they won 18-15 in a close game last year. And those guys there have good talent. My boys feel like it’s Bay versus Rutherford. These guys don’t like us when it comes to football and we don’t like them when it comes to football.”

“You know, I think the most important thing is to control your emotions during the week,” Coach Brown said. “You know, the one thing we never had to worry about when I was in school was that we didn’t have to worry about social media, cell phones, things like that. And I think there’s so much of it that the kids can do, they can just get caught up in it and lose sight of the end game. The end game is to be ready to win the game. You know, all the talking and posting and all that stuff on these social media sites, it doesn’t do anything, it just brings negative energy and negative attention to what you really hope is a really good high school -Football game is.”

The Tornadoes have dominated this series recently, winning nine of the last ten games by a score of 18-15, including last year’s game. Game time at Tommy Oliver is set for 7 p.m. on Friday and it is one of several games we will feature in Friday night’s overtime.

This week’s high school football game is sponsored by Diego’s Burrito Factory.

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