River Ridge visits Woodstock tonight, live from The Wolverine Den in Woodstock.

This is the second all-time meeting between the two programs, last year the Wolverines won 42-7.

The Knights of River Ridge are coming off of a 3-7 year in 2014, their first season in the 5A classification. After a 3-2 start, they lost their last five ballgames of the year by an average of 20 PPG. The Knights are another on the long, long list of young programs in the state, born in 2009. Over the last two years they are a combined 5-15. In 2011 and 2012, they were very competitive; as they compiled a 13-8 record and made their lone playoff appearance.

First year HC Tyler Winn, who has been a member of the staff since 2010, will need a very young and rather inexperienced team to gel quickly. In a program of over a hundred kids, from freshman to senior, the Knights have only twenty seniors.

Having senior quarterback Marcus Spears returning will certainly help. In 2014, Spears passed for just shy of 1,000 yards in limited time. Senior running back Tremain Carr also returns; last year, he rushed for 800 yards and five scores.

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Meanwhile, Woodstock was an en vogue pick to reach the playoffs in 2014. HC Brent Budde’s squad jumped out to a 5-0 mark, and was 3-0 inside of the region. That fifth win was one of the most exciting games across the state in 2014; and was our 680 The Fan FNF Game of the Week, by the way. They defeated one of the pre-season region favorites, and a future Final Four team, Etowah, 47-44 in triple overtime. However, the Wolverines then lost 4 straight, most notably to Cherokee, who won the tie-breaker and reached the post-season in their place.

In 2015, the Wolverines will need to replace quarterback Justin Agner and senior wide out Reagan Amos, who were the centerpieces of an offense that averaged 34 PPG last year. Region 5 6A will be tough for Woodstock in 2015. Lassiter and Walton will be better. Etowah and Milton will still be good, even though they will drop off a little from last year. Some believe Roswell is the heir apparent to win the region and could be a Final Four team.

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To be blunt, neither of these teams are state championship caliber; but that isn’t the goal in 2015 for these programs. If they can gel quickly, and win the toss-up ballgames in their region, either could be a surprise playoff team by earning a number four seed.

The pre-game show goes on the air at 7pm Eastern time. In metro Atlanta we can be heard on 1230am The Fan 2 and 1340am The Fan 3; anywhere else, online at Atlantassportsstation.com. Kickoff will be somewhere around 7:30, and the Scoreboard Show will follow the ballgame.