By Robert Hudson

The Selma Times-Journal

The Morgan Academy Senators will face a familiar foe, as they’ll play a tune-up game on Friday before opening the regular season.

The Senators will play the Fort Dale Academy Eagles in a jamboree game at home at 7 p.m. on Friday.

The Eagles were the team who knocked the Senators out of the of the first round of the Alabama Independent Schools Association AAA playoffs and went on to win the state championship.

Morgan Academy coach Brian King said the Eagles are an aggressive spread team who feature a balanced attack.

“They run an aggressive spread offense that’s pretty even with run and pass,” King said. “We’ve really been working on those looks because we know they’re also threats from both sides of the ball, especially offensively. They can run or pass at any given point and be good at it.”

King has been making sure his team has been dropping back in to the proper zones and mixing up the coverages to prepare for the Eagles.

“We’ve also stayed run-first committed and it’s been going well for us,” King said. “We’re just excited to get that look against them and play against them.”

King said his team won’t exactly be seeking vengeance, but is excited to play the Eagles once more.

“We haven’t faced them since they knocked us out of the playoffs last year, “ King said. “So it’s going to be fun to get some full-speed competition against the team that ended our season last year.”

King said playing against Fort Dale’s 3-3-5 stack defense will also help his team work on pass blocking and run reads on option plays.

“They’re (Fort Dale) usually all over the place, so it’ll give us a good look at what we can do as far as adjustments early on in the season,” King said.

King is hoping his team can use the jamboree as practice to help minimize mistakes.

“We want to work on finishing the game and work on no mistakes,” King said. “That’s been our biggest point this season because we had a lot of problems with turnovers last year and that’s one of the problems we want to prove to ourselves that it’s not going to be a hindrance this year.”