By Lynette Norris
Greene Publishing, Inc.
The Monday before Thanksgiving, the Cowboys are still hard at work with daily football practice, and their hard work shows in the 11-game winning streak that has now has them in the state playoffs. Part of what makes the team so successful is their defense, as head coach Mike Coe has said on previous occasions when speaking of the hard work the defensive line puts forth.
Eddrick Williams, #12, defensive end, Brandon Crawford, #11, defensive end and Keldrick Williams, #6, nose guard, together form the Madison County High School Cowboys starting defensive lineup.
Eddrick Williams, son of Latonya Boldin and Bobby Williams, Jr., has been part of the starting lineup for one year, and likes “Dragonball Z,” hot wings and French fries.
Like Eddrick, Brandon Crawford has also been part of the starting lineup for one year. The son of Carol and Solomon Griffin, Sr., he also lists French fries as his favorite food.
Keldrick Williams, son of Jerry Miller and Sonya Williams, has held the nose guard position for two years and says his favorite food is pork chops and his favorite TV show is “Sanford and Son.”
One thing they all have in common is when they talk about their favorite Cowboy moment – the Gainesville game, a 21-17 win for the Cowboys.
“Everybody thought we would lose,” said Keldrick Williams of the Oct. 28 game. “But we beat their expectations. That’s the best moment for me.”
“I have to agree with him about that game,” said Crawford. “It showed how much we had improved since that first game.”
Eddrick Williams also named the Gainesville game as one of his favorite moments, but he went on to include that very first game against Colquitt, the one Crawford mentioned.
Even though they lost, and it was their first game of the season, Williams chose it “because of how hard we played against Colquitt as a team. Being the first game, we played better than we thought we would.”
The Cowboy defense held the Colquitt Packers to only 20 points; the Cowboys lost by a mere one point. The final score, 19-20, is their only loss so far this season.
The Cowboys went on from there to trounce the Suwannee Bulldogs 40-8 and the Jefferson Tigers 42-7, and score their highest total so far, 55-14 against the Taylor County Bulldogs.
In the majority of their games since then, the Cowboy defense has held opponents to less than 20 points. By the time they played Gainesville, they did indeed show how much they had improved, as Crawford noted; not just winning, but winning a game people thought they would lose – beating the expectations.
All three players also plan to go on to college after graduation, although their final choices about where to go are still up in the air. Crawford says he might like to go to Alabama, but it’s not definite yet. Keldrick Williams and Eddrick Williams are still unsure about which college, but as they look toward the future, as Eddrick puts it, “I just know I want to go.”
