The Long County Blue Tide will be taking on Berrien this Friday night in Ludowici and Head coach John Pollock knows the excitement is something that’s familiar, although the current circumstances surrounding the game are different.

“Obviously we have the Covid rules in place, for good reasons, we don’t want to do anything to risk the health of the students,” Pollock said. “But we have had a great July and the kids are very excited about playing.”

Pollock also pointed out that his team is starting to reap the awards of the weight program he installed when he took over the Blue Tide.

“We now have kids who have been in our weight program for the last three years and we also have more skilled players than we have had in the past,” he pointed out. “We have a really good freshman class coming up so there’s a little bit more excitement.”

The Blue Tide enters the season with a very small senior class, but Pollock thinks they may still be a strong point on the team.

“We have a very small class, we only have seven seniors, but they have been very good leaders. Our junior class is very athletic, very talented as is our freshmen,” he said. “But, we also have some very good players in our sophomore class as well. My goal for this program was to build it from the ground up and as long as our program players play better we are going to do well.”

Long County has been known to be the home for very talented players and Pollock also thinks that’s the case coming into this season.

“Long has always been known to have two or three good players every year and that’s the case this year,” he said. “We have to get our other players to be good high school football players.”

As the Blue Tide prepares for Friday night, Berrien it’s almost like looking in the mirror for Pollock.

“They are a lot like us,” he said. “They are a program on the rise just like us. They have good skill kids and they are running a new offensive system so it’s going to be a learning experience for both teams. We just are excited to get our kids on the field against somebody else and see how they execute and how they compete.”

Kickoff for the game is slated for Friday night at 7:30. The crowd will be limited to 40 percent capacity according to Pollock which would mean 750-800 tickets will be sold.