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

What is particularly noteworthy is that his team still plays football.

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

The Panthers advance to the Class 3A semifinals on an 11-game winning streak after losing in their first two games to Class 5A Selma and regional champion Thomasville.

Now Southside High School will take a three-plus hour road trip to Dothan on Black Friday to face Houston Academy (12-1), which defeated perennial power TR Miller 17-14, handing them their only loss of the season.

Even though the chance to play in the Super 7 at Protective Stadium in Birmingham is on the line, Moody said he viewed this as just another game, as it has been all season, especially after they had a difficult start to the season.

“I had this conversation the other day with someone who saw us in the first few weeks of the season and said, ‘I never thought you all could be this good.’ And they asked, ‘Did I think we could be that good?’ I almost certainly did. I felt like we could be here, but that wasn’t the focus. The focus was week by week and I think that was hugely important for us. We haven’t talked to the team about a championship yet. We hadn’t talked about taking the team to a championship. We’re just talking about what’s ahead of us this week.”

Focused on Houston Academy

Moody’s focus this week was defense.

“Our main goal defensively is to be able to stop the run. Yes. That’s our main goal compared to everyone we play against. That’s definitely something we’re sticking with this week,” Moody said. “Make sure we line up correctly and that we understand formations and tendencies. They do lots of different formations. Yes. They have a college, a former college coach as their offensive coordinator. We have to make sure we’re ready for the things he does.”

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

But an Achilles heel for Southside has been its trouble 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 a really good receiver, so we also want to try to slow that down and limit big plays,” Moody said. “If they score, we want to make sure they play the ball. This year no one really gave us a hard time. Every score is because someone somewhere made a mistake and we gave up a big play. So if we could learn to stop giving up on the big plays, I think we would be a lot more superior on defense.”

Reduce fluctuations

Equally important to Southside’s success is limiting its turnover. The Panthers had five turnovers against Bayside Academy.

“Secondly, offensively we want to protect the ball, have good drives and take everything they give us because we know they have to give us something,” Moody said. “You can’t take everything away. Whatever they give us, we want to make sure we take it and 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, stay focused and do what we’ve been teaching them all week – follow the game plan.”

Preparing for a long journey

Southside will have a long drive to Dothan via US 80 and US 231. Moody said they plan to leave earlier than normal to give his team a chance to rest before the game.

“We want to get there early and let them sleep on the way there,” Moody said. “They often sleep on the way when you go to the game. When you get there, it’s time to get ready and do warm-ups, taping exercises, and the like. And they’re still sleeping. So we’ll be there a lot sooner.”

Moody said they would take a charter bus to Dothan for the game. And he appreciated everyone who helped them organize the trip and dinner for the trip.

“We have everything planned up until then and we know what we’re going to do,” Moody said. We would like to thank Coach Smith. He and his group will pay for our food. We really appreciate them for that.”

Healthy as he has been all season

One thing Southside struggled with all season was injuries. Derick Smith, who has been committed to Auburn since the start of the season, battled injuries throughout the year.

Moody said they have gotten better as the season has progressed and could be in the best shape they have been all season.

“We’ve been injured all year, this is probably the healthiest season we’ve ever had, and for us we’re in Week 15 because we played the jamboree in week zero,” Moody said. So this will actually be our 15th game, and this will be the healthiest we’ve played all season, which is crazy because that’s usually when people get hit, get hurt, things like that. So we really thank the Lord for blessing us with a healthy team at this point and we were able to overcome the injuries early on to make it to this point.”

Key to success

One thing Moody was impressed with was the discipline and football IQ of this team.

“I definitely felt like we had the talent (in the past),” Moody said. “What kind of held us back was discipline and football intelligence. Our boys have learned so much football in the last few years and are really smart. Like yesterday, we laid out the game plan and before I could tell them how to line up, they were already sticking to it. So we have some guys there who are great leaders and know how we should do certain things, how we should line up and how we should play. We currently have a great group of leaders in our junior and senior classes.”