Robertsdale head coach Justin Jones is entering his second season with the Bears, but in many ways he’s treating the 2026 campaign as a fresh start, given how late he arrived on the job before last season.
Jones took over a program that had gone just 2-24 over its previous 26 games before he was hired late last summer. Despite the compressed timeline to install his system, Robertsdale doubled its win total from the previous 26 games combined, finishing 4-6 in Jones’ first season.
“To me, this is kind of year one because we got there so late last year,” Jones said. “It was more like year zero.”
Jones, who has 13 years of head coaching experience in Alabama and has guided teams to the playoffs in nine of those seasons, said he’s optimistic about where the program stands heading into his first full offseason at the helm.
“We’re just excited about where we are,” Jones said. “This being year one, we’re excited about where we’re at, the possibilities in front of us now. You got to go make the most of those opportunities and then kind of see where things lay out. After about eight or nine weeks in the season, hopefully we’re fighting for a chance to do something and make a playoff game in Robertsdale.”
A playoff appearance would be Robertsdale’s first since 2004. The Bears’ path won’t be easy: enrollment figures placed Robertsdale in Class 6A, a classification the Alabama High School Athletic Association restructured this cycle to include the state’s 32 largest schools, among them programs that competed in the old Class 7A under the previous alignment. For the next two AHSAA classification cycles, public and private schools will compete in separate playoff brackets.
Robertsdale’s Region 1 slate includes several other schools near the bottom of that 32-team enrollment pool, with Fairhope ranked 28th, Foley 29th, Davidson 30th and Robertsdale 31st. Only Madison County’s Buckhorn is smaller among Class 6A programs. The region also includes larger enrollment schools such as Baker (8th), Mary Montgomery (14th), Alma Bryant (17th) and Daphne (20th), giving Robertsdale one of the toughest size disadvantages in its own region.
Jones said breaking the program’s long playoff drought will come down to fundamentals rather than any single scheme or strategy.
“It’s consistency,” Jones said. “Just figuring out the things you do on a daily basis is what in turn becomes what Friday nights become. Once that initial shock or that first series or that first whatever, it’s just being really consistent in who we are. I think usually teams that are really consistent are teams that find ways to win ball games.”
Robertsdale returns four starters on both sides of the ball heading into the season. On offense, senior quarterback Cub Jones leads a group that includes senior wide receiver Colton Boudreaux, senior offensive lineman Eli Rodgers and sophomore offensive lineman Jonathan Barragan.
“Offensively, of course, naturally by the position your quarterback has to kind of be that guy,” Jones said. “And then Eli Rodgers does a really good job, and he kind of sets the tone for that group.”
On defense, Jones expects senior linebacker Hunter Williams to anchor the unit, alongside returning starters Jahiem Howard on the defensive line and Kyron Williams and Brandon Clayton in the secondary. All four are seniors, giving Robertsdale a veteran presence on that side of the ball entering the year.
Jones arrives at Robertsdale after previous head coaching stops at Beauregard, where his teams made the playoffs in each of his final three seasons, along with head coaching roles at Florala, New Brockton and Cordova. He has also served as an assistant coach at Enterprise and as defensive coordinator at Prattville.
Robertsdale’s push for its first playoff berth in more than two decades will unfold against the backdrop of a newly aligned Class 6A, where enrollment gaps between the region’s largest and smallest programs remain significant. How the Bears fare against that disparity in size will be one of the storylines to watch as the season approaches.