High School Football Kicks Off Aug. 20-22 With Marquee Matchups Across South Alabama

Three Days, One Headliner

South Alabama’s high school football season kicks off next week with three days of action from Aug. 20-22, headlined by a nationally televised matchup and several highly anticipated rivalry games. The opening weekend stretches from the Eastern Shore to Prichard, giving fans across Mobile and Baldwin counties a rare chance to see the region’s top programs and storylines collide before September even arrives.

St. Michael will host Battle Ground Academy of Franklin, Tennessee, in a nationally televised game Saturday, Aug. 22, at 12:30 p.m. The Cardinals, coming off their first-ever undefeated regular season and a 13-1 finish, will now compete in the new Private AA classification under head coach Philip Rivers and his son, quarterback Gunner Rivers, widely considered the state’s top 2027 recruit.

Gunner Rivers has passed for 10,200 yards and 111 touchdowns in his career, sixth all-time in AHSAA history. Those numbers have made him a fixture of national recruiting coverage, and his senior season under his father, the former NFL quarterback, is one of the most followed storylines in Alabama high school football heading into the fall.

Battle Ground Academy brings its own star power in quarterback Bo Bryan, son of country singer Luke Bryan; the program has reached the state title game the past two seasons, winning it last year. A nationally ranked private school traveling south to face the defending storyline of Mobile’s private-school scene makes the noon kickoff the kind of opener the television cameras circle on the calendar.

The Battle of Prichard

The night’s action continues at 7 p.m. with the annual “Battle of Prichard” rivalry between Vigor and Blount at Ladd-Peebles Stadium. The game is one of the oldest and most passionate rivalries in the region, and the stadium that has hosted some of the biggest games in Mobile history will open its gates for the two Prichard programs as it has for decades.

Vigor has won six straight meetings and seven of the past eight, and reached last year’s Class 5A state title game before falling to Moody. Three Vigor players, edge Jabarrius Garror (Texas), defensive back Miguel Wilson (Kentucky) and linebacker Isaac McNeil (Auburn), have verbally committed to SEC programs, a haul that marks the Wolves as one of the most talented rosters in south Alabama regardless of classification.

Blount, which finished 2-8 last season, has a new head coach in Gus Smith following the dismissal of Ramon Nelson. The Leopards are aiming to reset a program that has spent recent years on the wrong side of the rivalry, and an opener against the crosstown power is as unforgiving a first test as a new coach could draw.

Rivalry openers carry extra weight for both sides. Momentum from a rivalry win shapes a season’s confidence, and for Blount the chance to end a six-game skid against Vigor in front of a full Ladd-Peebles crowd is the kind of statement game that can define a rebuilding year before it truly begins.

Thursday’s Eastern Shore Opener

Thursday, Aug. 20, brings the season opener between Daphne and Spanish Fort, with Daphne looking to build on a 9-3 season and second-round playoff run in Class 7A, while Spanish Fort, now competing in Class 5A, is coming off a 4-6 season that missed the playoffs. The two Eastern Shore programs have built one of Baldwin County’s most reliable season-opening traditions, and this year’s meeting comes with the unusual backdrop of the schools sitting in different classifications.

Daphne snapped a four-game losing skid to the Toros with a 42-28 win last year, though Spanish Fort holds an 11-3 edge in the all-time series. The Toros’ history in the series stretches back to a stretch of dominant seasons that included multiple state titles, which is part of what makes Spanish Fort’s drop to Class 5A one of the more intriguing classifications storylines of the year.

Classification changes reshape expectations across the board. A program that battled through the depth of Class 6A or 7A often finds the playoff math friendlier two classes down, and Spanish Fort’s championship pedigree suggests the Toros should not be judged by last season’s losing record. Daphne, meanwhile, wants to prove that last year’s breakthrough was a trend rather than a spike.

Friday’s 18-Game Slate

Friday, Aug. 21, features 18 games involving area teams, headlined by Williamson traveling to Baker and Saraland facing Mary G. Montgomery. The Friday slate spreads across Mobile County from one end to the other, giving fans their first full night of scoreboard-watching across the region’s classifications.

Williamson, the 2025 Class 5A Region 1 champion at 12-1, features college prospects linebacker Ellis McGaskin (Florida commit) and defensive back Jaylen Scott (Oklahoma commit); Baker went 9-3 and reached the second round of the Class 7A playoffs in Eric Scott’s first year as head coach. The matchup pits one of the region’s stingiest defenses against a Baker program that has climbed quickly under its new staff.

Saraland, which reached the state championship game in Class 6A for four straight seasons and won the title in 2022, moves down to Class 5A this year behind quarterback Jamison Roberts, an Oklahoma commit. Few programs in the state have sustained a run at that level, and the Spartans enter their new classification with the expectation, not merely the hope, of playing deep into November again.

MGM, now in Class 6A, enters its first season under new head coach Alex Page after former coach Zach Golson was suspended by the AHSAA for recruiting violations; the Vikings went 10-2 last year before losing to eventual state champion Thompson in the playoffs. Hosting Saraland to open the year gives the Vikings an immediate measure of where their new staff has the program.

Who Waits a Week

Four area teams, Murphy, Faith Academy, St. Luke’s and Bayside Academy, will wait until the following week to open their seasons. The staggered start gives those programs an extra week of practice and a chance to scout the opening-week results across their regions before their own kickoffs.

Murphy, the historic Mobile program that plays its home games near Midtown, has spent recent years rebuilding toward the standard the Panthers once set in Class 7A. Faith Academy and St. Luke’s both carry strong private-school traditions, and Bayside Academy on the Eastern Shore opens under the usual pressure of a program whose playoff expectations rarely change from year to year.

The delayed openers also change the shape of the first weekend’s radio dial and highlight shows. With eighteen Friday games plus the Thursday and Saturday showcases, opening week already covers nearly every corner of the two counties, and the four teams sitting out will headline the second week’s slate instead, giving fans back-to-back full weekends to start the season.

What the Season Ahead Holds

Opening week rarely decides anything on its own, but it sets the tone for every storyline that follows. The new Private AA classification will test whether St. Michael’s breakthrough season can translate into a deep playoff run, and the Saturday telecast gives the Cardinals a stage no regular-season game in the school’s short history has offered.

The Private AA alignment itself is new territory for the AHSAA, created to group private schools competitively and settle long-running questions about classification equity. St. Michael’s move into the field means every region game this fall will be a fresh matchup, and the Cardinals’ undefeated regular season from a year ago makes them a measuring stick for the rest of the new classification.

Recruiting watchers will track the region’s committed stars from week to week, with Gunner Rivers, Garror, Wilson, McNeil, McGaskin, Scott and Roberts all among the most followed prospects in the state. A season of Friday nights doubles as an audition film season for players whose college destinations are already set but whose draft stock in the eyes of recruiting services is still being written.

The coaching changes add their own layer of interest. Gus Smith at Blount, Eric Scott’s second year at Baker and Alex Page at MGM all represent new directions for programs with recent success or recent struggles, and openers against quality opponents will tell fans quickly how realistic the optimism around each staff is.

Region races across Class 7A, 6A and 5A begin in earnest in the weeks that follow, and the results from Aug. 20-22 will shape the first rankings and the first playoff projections of the year. For the players, the months of summer conditioning and two-a-days finally become games; for the fans across Mobile and Baldwin counties, the most wonderful time of the year on the Gulf Coast arrives with three straight days of it.

Kickoff times for the Friday slate vary by site, and fans are encouraged to check with the host schools for gate times and ticketing details. With a nationally televised stage at St. Michael, a rivalry night at Ladd-Peebles and a full Friday card across the region, south Alabama’s 2025 season starts as big as any in recent memory.