Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Southside head football coach Charles Moody has plenty to be thankful for this Thanksgiving week.

One thing in particular is that his team is still playing football.

“It’s something every coach wants to do. It’s something every kid should dream to do as well,” Moody said as his team was practicing on Tuesday. “So, it’s a blessing for us to be out here. We’re really thankful on this Thanksgiving week to be out here.”

The Panthers are riding into the Class 3A semifinals on an 11-game winning streak after falling in their first two games to Class 5A Selma and region champion Thomasville.

Now, The Southside High School will be taking an over three-hour road trip to Dothan on Black Friday to take on Houston Academy (12-1), who defeated perennial powerhouse T.R. Miller 17-14 to hand them their only loss of the season.

While the stakes may be high with a chance to play in the Super 7 at Protective Stadium in Birmingham, Moody said he’s treating this just like another game, as it has been all season long especially after they got off to a rough start to the season.

“I just had this conversation with someone the other day who saw us the first couple weeks of the season was like, ‘I never envisioned y’all being able to be this good.’ And they asked, ‘Did I think that we could be this good?’ I almost definitely did. I felt like we could be here, but that wasn’t the focus. The focus was week-to-week, and I think that’s been major for us. Like, we haven’t talked about a championship with the team. We hadn’t talked about going to a championship with the team. All we talk about is whatever that week is that’s in front of us.”

Focusing on Houston Academy

The focus for Moody this week has been on defense.

“Our number one goal defensively is we want to be able to stop the run. Yeah. That’s our number one goal versus everyone that we play. That’s definitely something that we are locked into this week,” Moody said. “Making sure we lining up right and making sure we understand formations and tendencies. They do a whole lot of different formations. Yeah. They have a college, a former college coach as their offensive coordinator. We have to make sure that we’re ready for the things that he’s doing.”

The defense has been a key to Southside’s comebacks over the past two weeks. The defense locked down Montgomery Academy after they built a 14-0 lead, and the Panthers also shut down Bayside Academy after they scored 24 points in the first two quarters plus one play.

But an Achilles heel for Southside has been its issues with giving up big plays. Two of the three touchdowns the Admirals scored came on runs of 90 and 55 yards.

“They have a really good quarterback and really good receiver, so we wanna try to slow that down as well and limit big plays,” Moody said. “If they do score, we wanna make sure they drive the ball. No one has really driven the ball on us this year. Everyone who scores, it comes from someone making a mistake somewhere and us giving up a big play. So if we could learn to stop giving up the big plays, I think we’ll be way more formidable on defense.”

Cutting down turnovers

Just as important to success to Southside is limiting its turnovers. The Panthers overcame five turnovers against Bayside Academy.

“Secondly, offensively we wanna protect the ball, have good drives and take whatever it is that they’re giving us because we know they gotta give us something,” Moody said. “You can’t take everything away. So whatever they give us, we wanna make sure we take it and just stay focused throughout the game. I think we have everything we need to win the game. We just have to make sure we come in, be focused and do what it is that we’ve been coaching them to do all week — follow the game plan.”

Preparing for a long trip

Southside will have a long trip down U.S. 80 and U.S. 231 to Dothan. Moody said they are planning to leave earlier than normal to allow his team a chance to rest prior to the game.

“We want to get there earlier and let them sleep on the way down there,” Moody said. “A lot of times when you leave to get to the game, they’ll sleep on the way. When you get there, it’s time to go and get ready and do warm-ups, taping and things of that sort. And they still kinda sleeping. So we’re gonna get there a whole lot earlier.”

Moody said they will be taking a charter bus to Dothan for the game. And he appreciated everyone who helped them secure the travel and dinner for the trip.

“We got everything planned out as far as that and what we’re gonna do,” Moody said. We want to thank Coach Smith. He and his group are going to pay for that meal for us. We really appreciate them for doing that.”

Healthy as they’ve been all season

One thing that Southside has been dealing with all season long has been injuries. Derick Smith, who has been committed to Auburn since the beginning of the season, has been battling through injuries all year long.

Moody said they’ve been getting better throughout the season, and they might be in the best shape they’ve been all season long.

“We’ve been hurt all year, this is probably the healthiest we’ve been all season, and we’re in week 15 for us because we played the jamboree in week zero,” Moody said. So this is gonna be actually our 15th game, and this is gonna be the healthiest we’ve been all season, which is crazy because this is normally when people are banged u,  hurt and things of that sort. So we really thank the Lord for blessing us with a healthy team at this point, and we were able to withstand the injuries early on to be able to still get to this point.”

Key to success

One thing that Moody has been impressed with has been the discipline and football IQ of this team.

“I definitely felt like we had the talent (in the past),” Moody said. “The thing that just kind of has been holding us back has been discipline and football intellect. Our guys have learned so much football over the course of the last couple years, and they’re really smart. Like yesterday, we were putting in the game plan, and before I could tell them how they were lining up, they were already lining up to it. So we have some guys over there that are some major leaders and know how we’re supposed to do certain things, know how we’re supposed to line up and know how we’re supposed to play. We’ve got a great group of leaders in our junior and senior classes right now.”