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VALLEY — Valley High head football coach Adam Hunter was the guest speaker at the Wednesday meeting of the Kiwanis Club of Valley and previewed the upcoming season. Hunter is entering his fifth season as the school’s head coach. He’s been with the Chambers County School System for 18 years, first as a physical education teacher at LaFayette Lanier Elementary and for the past seven years he’s been at Valley High.

His first year as the team’s head coach was a really tough one. It was during Covid and the Rams had to compete against a 6A schedule. Valley High was the smallest 6A team in the state at the time.

It’s been a slow but steady building process since then, and Valley had a breakthrough season last year, posting their best overall record in more than 10 years.

They finished the regular season 7-3 before losing a first-round 5A playoff game to B.C. Rain of Mobile.

The team had a star-studded senior class with four players signing with four-year colleges. Three-year starting quarterback Cam Dooley is now at Kentucky, Jay Harper at Wisconsin, Ian Crim Davis at Morehouse College in Atlanta and Brandon Thomas with Louisiana-Monroe.

“We will have to replace 2,000 yards in total offense from last year and both of our starting cornerbacks,” Hunter said.

They will be hard to replace, but Coach Hunter likes what he has seen from his team in pre-season workouts. “We have 65 players out right now, and they have been trying really hard to do what we tell them to,” he said. “I can never remember it being as hot as it has been this summer in our workouts, but I really like the attitude of our guys in dealing with it. We are trying to install a better mindset. We need to finish better than we have in recent years. We have been preaching that.”

On the positive side, what is returning are offensive and defensive lines that are talented and deep. The Rams will be more of a run-oriented team this year. This team will be something of a throwback to old-style, smash mouth football, something Valley High teams have excelled at for many years.

Keying the attack will be the return of running back Tylin Carrell, who ran for more than 1,200 yards last year. The coaches have been impressed by what they’e seen from sophomore Mason Yarbrough. “He’s one of the strongest players on the team,” Hunter said. “He’s looked good running the ball.”

Yarbrough will also play a good bit at linebacker on defense.

Starting in the offensive line will be four seniors and a sophomore. The 10th grader, Jax Miller, started most of last year as a freshman. “We will need to control the ball with our running game,” Hunter said. “We have been emphasizing that this summer.”

It won’t be easy to replace Cam Dooley at quarterback, but Gavin Goss has looked good in practice. “We like the way he has stepped up,” Hunter said. “He’s a quiet leader, but we think he can get the job done.”

Stalwarts on the defensive line will be Antwan Greenwood and Jaden Roberts, both of whom have played a lot of football for Valley High. Isaiah Gray is out right now recovering from an injury but should be back around mid season.

Valley competes in 5A Region 4. The Rams will play seven region opponents and three non-region teams. The season opener will be quite interesting. On August 23rd they will open at Glenwood. A long-time AISA power, Glenwood will be playing public school teams this year. They are coached by former Valley High head coach Buster Daniel, who won a state championship a couple of years ago.

Hunter expects Clay Central to be very good again this year despite having had a large senior class last year. “Coach Danny Horne always seems to have good teams,” Hunter said. “I like competing against him. When I was a senior at Horseshoe Bend he was playing for Clay County.”

Other teams in the region include Elmore County, Beauregard, Marbury, Holtville and Sylacauga.

Valley’s non-region opponents include Smiths Station, Russell County and Dadeville.

“I hated it that we’re not playing Lanett,” he said. “That rivalry had been going on for many years, and they always played hard against us.”

Lanett is a 2A school, and history or not it doesn’t make a a lot of sense to have a rival game between a 2A team and a 5A, and soon-to-be, 6A team.

It’s like Alabama or Auburn pretending to have a big rivalry with Samford.

“We will need to stay healthy this year,” Hunter said. “We don’t have the depth we’d like to have. Kids just aren’t into sports the way they used to be. More of them are working at jobs or into video games. We started out this spring with 80 players. We’re now down to 65, but we feel like we have the ones who really want to play.”

The team has been doing lots of seven-on-seven drills. “It like it to a point,” Hunter said, “but football is an 11-player sport, and you have to be ready to play it that way.”

Assisting the coaching staff as a volunteer is former NFL player Jylan Ware, who played his high school ball at Valley and was a three-year starter at Alabama State before being drafted by the Oakland Raiders. He played for the Raiders in 2017, for the New York Giants in 2018 and the Washington Redskins in 2019.

“He’s still very young, knowledgable about football and has ties to colleges and the NFL,” Hunter said.

“We have been going from 8 to 10:30 a.m. Monday through Thursday,” Hunter added. “Some people might consider us behind the times on our weight room. We have but eight racks and have to take turns in our workouts, but that’s okay. We have a motto: ‘We take care of what we have got.’ Booster clubs help us, and we appreciate it, but we need more volunteers. We’d like to have more parental involvement. You can’t depend on a handful of people doing all that needs to get done. People need to come together in order to make it work.”

Valley High is a mid-level 5A team but will almost certainly go to 6A when consolidation with LaFayette High takes place.

“We are in a transitional period right now,” Hunter said. “We hope to get it worked out and to move in the right direction. We have always had great community support, and we hope that continues.”

The school had to raise ticket prices to $9 for each of five home games last year. This was necessary to cover some raises for the officials who did the games.

Valley had a very successful year in athletics in 2023-24. The football team had its best record since 2012, the boys basketball team made it to the 5A state championship game for the second year in a row, and the baseball team had an outstanding year. Hunter is hopeful that trend can continue.