The 2024 high school football season ends on Friday, and what a season it was.

Five of the seven WEIS coverage area teams reached the playoffs. Three of them won regional championships. Two of them were undefeated in the regular season.

But now it’s important that the Cherokee County Warriors (13:1) bring home a championship title from Protective Stadium in Birmingham.

It won’t be easy, nor should it be. After all, this is a state championship game.

The Jackson Aggies (13-1) were the top-ranked team in Class 4A in the Alabama Sports Writers Association football rankings all season. Their only loss came in the season opener on Aug. 23, 35-27, against Class 6A state championship contender Saraland.

The Aggies have outscored their opponents 630-182 this season, averaging 45-13 points per game. They have given up just 38 points in the playoffs, with all of those points coming in the last two weeks against Tallassee (41-10) and Region 1 rival St. Michael (49-28).

In the win over St. Michael last week, junior quarterback Landon Duckworth scored four points. He had touchdown runs of 10 and 5 yards and also connected with junior receiver Keeyun “Red” Chapman on two long touchdown passes (77 and 40 yards).

Duckworth has thrown for 3,109 yards and 35 touchdowns this season. He also ran for 631 yards and scored 12 scores on 59 carries.

Limiting Duckworth will be the biggest challenge for Cherokee County’s defense, but when these two teams met for the state title at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa in 2009, the Warrior defense had the daunting task of containing another standout Aggie this season -Athletes to contain: Running back Damion Bracy.

Bracy rushed for 169 yards on 31 carries and three touchdowns that day, but the Warriors stopped him when it mattered most. On a fourth-and-1 at the Warrior 44-yard line and trailing 27-24 with just over three minutes left, Cole Sterling Bracy threw for a 3-yard loss.

That set the stage for quarterback Coty Blanchard, who led a 10-play, 53-yard drive that included a 5-yard run with 26 seconds left to give the Warriors a 31-27 state-first and only victory football championship brought to the school.

Since then, that 2009 team has been the standard that all other Warrior teams have held themselves to. Over the past two seasons, the current Warriors have come close to entering the history books, but they narrowly missed the state championship.

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the Warriors’ 2009 state championship. Much like the 2024 Warriors, this 2009 team suffered heartbreak a season earlier before winning it all.

Wouldn’t it be a picture-perfect ending if this year’s Warriors could be there?

Yes, Jackson is probably the more talented team, and yes, the Warriors will have to play their absolute best game of the season to emerge victorious.

But a little historical motivation can sometimes be a powerful thing.

The choice: Cherokee County.