Bob Jones High School coach Kevin Rose meets with his team after a 49-0 victory against Grissom.
Kevin Rose knows the way to Hoover. After all, the first-year Bob Jones football coach was a Buccaneers assistant in 2007 before heading to Huntsville.
But Rose’s Patriots will be traveling uncharted territory – for themselves and the program – Friday when Bob Jones hits the road to play at Hoover in the Class 6A state quarterfinals.
LISTEN TO KEVIN ROSE TALK ABOUT THE HOOVER GAME HERE!
Bob Jones High School coach Kevin Rose
After all, their opponent isn’t just a football team. It is a brand. A national name. “Two-A-Days”. And, with due respect to Prattville, the measuring stick against which all 6A teams in Alabama measure themselves.
COMPLETE STATE PLAYOFF SCHEDULE!
“We would like to be that program, to be where Hoover is,” Rose said earlier this week. “Before you can do that, you have to beat a Hoover. … We want to be at that level, and you have to beat a Hoover to be considered in that mix.”
Rose and Bob Jones (11-1) are certainly shooting for the stars in a season that is already re-writing the Patriots record book. Last week’s 17-14 thriller against Decatur earned Bob Jones its 11th victory – the most any Patriots team has recorded in a single season. It also propelled the program to its first state quarterfinal berth in school history.
And how the Patriots did it stopped hearts across north-central Alabama – as Bob Jones marched the length of the field in the waning moments to set up Braden Hager’s 27-yard field goal to win it at the buzzer.
“I was very confident he would make the kick,” Rose said. “I would have been surprised if he hadn’t made it. I called a time out before that, had them all take a knee, and told them we do this every day at practice. Sure enough, he knocked it through right down the middle.”
“It meant a lot to all of us,” said Hager, who hadn’t been called on for a game-winning kick before Friday in his football career. “We were ready for it, and practice it every day. We have never won that many games in a season or advanced that far. It made history or Bob Jones. … I was a little nervous going out there, but it wasn’t that much longer than an extra point.”
Hager’s right foot clinched Friday’s date with destiny against 11-1 Hoover – a game that will be played at the school’s on-campus stadium and not at Regions Park after midseason rain coupled by a home game chewed up the latter stadium’s grass beyond repair.
For Rose, who credits his time at Hoover as “the best thing in coaching than I have done in my life”, the journey back to Buccaneer Country won’t muster any special message to his team.
“We won’t approach it like that. Obviously, want to be special and do something never done before, but my pregame and halftime speech is the same though,” Rose said. “We need to play hard for 48 minutes, and that is good enough. It is just like playing in the backyard. Just go play, and if Hoover is better than us, I will be the first to shake their hand.”
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