Jack’s Game of the Week: Athens vs. Muscle Shoals

MUSCLE SHOALS, Ala. (WHNT) — Athens and Muscle Shoals have met on the gridiron 35 times, nearly splitting the series evenly.

Though the Trojans have dominated this matchup recently winning every game dating back to 2015.

The Golden Eagles have been soaring, to say the least, this season with a 5-0 record.

In the nine years that Cody Gross has held the reins of the Athens program, he’s never beaten Muscle Shoals, will tonight be the night?

Or will Scott Basden’s Trojans get their fifth straight win of 2024? Let’s find out.

We had a feeling going into it that this one would turn into a shootout– let’s see if that would hold true.

Well, it didn’t take long for the Trojan’s offense to get started. In the first play of the ballgame, Samuel Clemmons connects with Jaquess Greene and Greene is gonna turn on the jets, nothing but open field in front of him, a house call for Greene, not a bad way to start the night for the home team.

So how bout the visitors? How will they respond? Perfectly if you ask me.

Xavier Edwards gets his hands on it, and he’s gonna do the rest, Edwards is endzone bound, 52 yards to the crib. Golden Eagles go for two and get it, it’s 8-7 Athens and all of that was just the first minute of the game.

So you might think okay maybe some time will pass before some more good highlights, not quite. Trojans offense back out. Clemmons looking to launch one, he does so to wide-open Ezra Fowler, he wins the foot race to the endzone, Muscle Shoals takes the lead back with 10:46 left in the first quarter.

Now a little time has passed, less than five minutes left in the first, Athens knocking on the goal line. Brogan Gross drops back and sees his guys James Newby just left completely open and just like that we’re tied up at 14 all.

But the Trojans offense just couldn’t be stopped, Muscle Shoals wins it 56-42.

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