Elberta High School football enters the season searching for a turnaround, and much of that hope rests on the shoulders of senior quarterback and linebacker Moose Owens, whose leadership and physical transformation have coaches and teammates believing better days are ahead for the Warriors. In a southern Baldwin County community where Friday nights at the high school stadium remain the town’s biggest gathering point — a place where families pack the bleachers from Elberta itself and the surrounding farms and subdivisions that stretch toward the Florida line — the fortunes of the football team are measured as a matter of civic pride, not just wins and losses.
Last season was a rough one for Elberta, which was outscored 408-119 across the campaign. Opponents regularly pulled away in the second half, and the scoreboard often concealed only briefly how outmanned the Warriors were against deeper, faster rosters. In a county whose public school programs have grown rapidly along with Baldwin County’s population boom, falling behind the Foley, Spanish Fort and Gulf Shores programs of the region has been a familiar challenge for smaller-town Elberta.
But this offseason brought a renewed emphasis on conditioning, weight training and nutrition, changes Owens said have reshaped the team from top to bottom. “The difference between the teams is like night and day,” Owens said. “We’ve got kids that you can tell a difference in them between days almost. Just the changes we’re going through with health and coach Williams and our coaching staff and our weight program are big. Miss Martha feeding us every day and just the love and the care they’re giving us is just amazing.”
The transformation, players say, is visible in the weight room and on the practice field. Workouts that once felt optional have become a shared standard, attendance has held steady through the summer, and the malaise that settled over the program during last year’s lopsided losses has given way to something closer to confidence. Whether that shows up on the scoreboard when the games count will define the season — but for the first time in a while, the Warriors believe they have the personnel to make it happen.
A Two-Way Player Getting Stronger
Owens started on both sides of the ball a year ago, splitting time at quarterback and linebacker while also getting snaps at tight end. He estimated he was on the field for roughly 130 snaps a game, a workload that wore on him by the fourth quarter. For a program without the depth to rest its best player, Owens was on the field for nearly every meaningful snap — calling the offense, then turning around to chase ballcarriers on defense, with special teams duty layered on top.
“I gave it my all every play, but towards the end of the game, playing both sides of the ball … I could feel myself being pushed back a little bit,” Owens said. “I just wasn’t strong enough to keep it going the whole game. I feel like that extra strength, that extra size is going to help out a lot this year.”
The added strength has come with a jump in speed as well, Owens said, crediting work on his legs, hips and core. He said he ran a 4.8-second 40-yard dash this offseason, a time he didn’t think was possible for him before this year. For a quarterback who will also be asked to run the football, that kind of measurable improvement changes what the offense can ask of him — designed runs, escapes from pressure and long gains that were not realistic a year ago.
Statistically, Owens was a major factor for Elberta last season, throwing for 360 yards and four touchdowns, rushing for 154 yards and adding 26 receiving yards. On defense, he recorded 28.5 tackles, including 5.5 tackles for a loss. Those numbers came in limited offensive production from a team that struggled to move the ball consistently, which makes the offseason gains all the more significant: the Warriors are counting on a stronger, faster version of the same player to anchor both the new offense and a defense that could not get off the field a year ago.
A Coach’s High Praise
Elberta head coach Williams, who said this will be his 46th year coaching and 47th season overall, did not hold back when describing what Owens has meant to the program’s turnaround effort. A coach with nearly a half-century of seasons behind him has seen every kind of leader, and Williams says he has never had another one like his senior quarterback.
“If there’s a reincarnation of Tim Tebow, that’s him,” Williams said of Owens. “Not just from the way he plays, but … when Moose starts to talk in the locker room or on the field, players and coaches just hush. I’ve never had a guy like Moose. It’s just unbelievable. The leadership qualities are incredible. You want him to stand up and give you his testimony? He’ll do that in a heartbeat. You want him to stand up and motivate the guy next to him? He’ll handle that.”
Williams drew a comparison to another standout he once coached: former Fairhope High School quarterback Riley Leonard, now with the Indianapolis Colts. Leonard, who threw for the Pirates before going on to a college career at Duke and then Notre Dame, reached the NFL as the kind of dual-threat quarterback and team leader that small-school Alabama football produces only rarely. “I had the fortune of working with Riley Leonard,” Williams said. “He’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to Riley Leonard. He’s that guy. Just unbelievable leadership skills.” The comparison carries weight coming from a coach who watched Leonard’s career unfold from its earliest days, and it sets a standard Owens will spend his final high school season trying to meet.
The Story Behind the Nickname
Owens said the origin of his nickname, Moose, traces back to his parents’ own story. His father was a Marine stationed in Hawaii, and his mother was vacationing there when the two met at a bar called Moose and McGillicuddy’s. When Owens was born, he said he was “super fat,” especially in the legs, and his mother began calling him Moose in a nod to where she and his father first met. The nickname has stuck ever since.
These days it fits differently than it did for a heavy-legged baby. The name that followed him through peewee football now belongs to the strongest player on his high school roster, and the barracks-story origin has become part of the program’s lore — retold by teammates and coaches who can hardly imagine calling him anything else. For a team trying to rebuild its identity, having a player whose nickname everyone in the stands already knows is its own small advantage.
Looking Ahead to the Season
Owens said this year’s offense has taken on a noticeably different mentality than the one that struggled through last season’s lopsided losses. “I love the effort. I love the speed and just the way we attack on offense,” he said. “Last year, sometimes if we messed up, we would get in our feels a little bit and slow down. But this year, everybody’s just off the wall trying to protect their teammates, trying to help their teammates. It’s a very close-knit, tight-knit group of people. It allows us to just excel better.”
Although Owens is not expected to see as much time on defense this season, he said he remains ready to help wherever the team needs him, including as the Warriors’ punter. The reduced defensive workload should keep him fresher for fourth quarters — the exact stretch that wore him down a year ago — while still preserving the option of sending one of the team’s best athletes onto the field in a pinch. He already has a college offer from Millsaps College, the Division III program in Jackson, Mississippi, to play linebacker, giving him a concrete path to play beyond his senior season no matter where he lines up this fall.
“I love quarterback. I’ve been playing quarterback since I was about this tall. Quarterback is what I’ve always loved to play, and so I’m just happy to play,” Owens said. “I would really play anything to help the team out. Coach Williams, if he told me to sell tickets, I’d go out and sell tickets in the parking lot.”
The schedule will offer no gentle introduction. Baldwin County’s public school landscape has grown into one of the most competitive in the state, with enrollment-fueled programs along the Interstate 10 corridor fielding rosters two and three deep at every position. For Elberta, progress this season will be measured as much in competitiveness — staying in games in the fourth quarter, avoiding the blowouts that defined last fall — as in the win column. The offseason work was designed precisely for that: a team that can hold its blocking assignments in the fourth quarter and tackle in space is a team that stops giving games away late.
For Elberta, the season ahead will be judged against the low water mark of last year and against the promise of an offseason in which the whole roster got bigger, faster and better conditioned. The Warriors will lean on their senior quarterback to set the tone from the first practice of the week to the final snap on Friday night — and if his coach’s assessment is right, Moose Owens is the kind of leader who can carry a turnaround on his shoulders. In a town that shows up for its team regardless of the record, that might be the most important position of all.
