I have never been so excited for high school football in my life. Albeit, when I went to high school, way back from ‘06 to 2010, my high school (Central High School, Macon, Georgia) was terrible at football.

In just nine days from today, on Friday night, Newton, Heritage and Rockdale kick off their respective seasons. I don’t have any emotions invested into either team, as I’ll be covering all six schools from Newton and Rockdale (yay me), but I’m looking forward to some excellent games.

From what I’ve seen and heard, this should be a pretty good season.

You’ve got Newton and the talk of the town quote from coach Terrance Banks about how they ‘run this county.’ Couple that with their rivalry with...well pretty much everybody, but Rockdale County specifically and you’ve got some amazing storylines going on headed into the season.

And that’s just Newton.

Alcovy is looking to make it back to the playoffs as well as a second consecutive winning season, for the first time in a few years. They have quarterback Armon “Bubba” Hickson, who came over from Newton and a really young team.

Eastside missed the playoffs last year, and they have a young team. The Eagles also have a young stud at quarterback in Austin Holloway, who will be fun to watch.

You’ve also got Salem, who hasn’t had a winning season in a couple of years. John Starr Sr. and John Starr Jr. are rebuilding that team, and we’ll find out if this is the year they turn it around.

Heritage is pretty much going through a re-tool, but they’ll definitely be competitive under new head coach Wendell Early, who looks to shift the team toward an up-tempo fast paced offense with a tough-minded 4-3 defense.

Then there’s Rockdale and their standout defensive back Tajuan (TJ) Warren. They were 6-4 last year, but missed out on the playoffs. With more experience under their belt, the team that has gotten better pretty much every year since coach Venson Elder came on board, could be on pace for a trip to the playoffs.

I haven’t been to Sharp Stadium, but I’m looking forward to spending my Friday nights in the press box. Where I come from, most schools don’t have their own stadiums, but the Rockdale schools do and all of them look enticing.

We’re doing coach’s corner videos this year with Rockdale Career Academy’s NFHS network, and we’ll have a lot more diverse coverage in both the Covington News and the Rockdale News.

Coverage will be more than just game recaps. We’re going to try and bring more feature-esque coverage as well as more analytic coverage breaking down games and player performance.

We’ll also have the athlete of the week for each Newton County School and the athlete of the month for Rockdale County schools.

I. Can’t. Wait.