Christian Malone
The Valdosta Daily Times
VALDOSTA —
VALDOSTA — Valdosta State will be hosting its annual high school football passing tournament on Saturday at four different sites in Valdosta.
Around 30 teams are expected to compete in the tournament, which will begin at 11 a.m. and likely last until Saturday evening.
The players will be competing in helmets and jerseys, with no pads on. Essentially it’s 7-on-7 touch football, played by high school teams.
Lowndes High and Valdosta High will both have teams competing in the tournament, which includes teams from Georgia, Florida and Alabama.
The four sites the tournament will be held at are Bazemore-Hyder Stadium, the field at VSU’s North Campus, Martin Stadium and Lowndes High’s practice field. The top two teams at each site will advance to the tournament quarterfinals. The quarterfinals, semifinals and finals will be held at Bazemore-Hyder Stadium.
Anyone is welcome to watch the tournament. There is no charge for admission.
Valdosta State head football coach David Dean said that high school teams get a lot out of summer passing competition, even though there is no blocking or tackling.
“It’s mostly for those high school players and coaches to get some work,” Dean said. “It gives them an opportunity to evaluate some kids that maybe they didn’t get a chance to evaluate in the spring, because of the short time they have. They can work on some different things that they’ve been talking about, looking at this summer. It gives a lot of young kids an opportunity to go out and compete, and see how they play.
“We find that a lot of schools will play a lot of sophomores, just to find out (if they can) compete at that level with other varsity players. ... They’ll give their backup quarterbacks a lot of work, will give them an opportunity to go out and throw in basically a live-type situation against another team. But the main thing is just reps. It just gives everybody an opportunity to come out and get a bunch of reps.”
Valdosta State has been hosting passing tournaments since 2001. This year, VSU switched its passing tournament from June to July.
“We had a lot of coaches that have asked us to move it to July, because basically they turn (some of) their players over to the basketball programs in June, and (those players) go to all the basketball camps in June, so a lot of the (football) coaches were not bringing their full teams down here, and they didn’t get to watch them,” Dean said. “Plus, it’s a little closer to their season, where they’ve implemented a little more, and they’ve got a little more installation in, and they can work on different things. So we’ve (moved it to July), and it’s been very successful for us. We’ve had a lot of appreciation of us moving it, and giving them an opportunity a little bit closer to the season for them to get some more work.”
Dean says that teams that will face each other in the regular season — like Valdosta and Lowndes, for example — will not be placed in the same group. So the teams will be seeing some unfamiliar foes on Saturday.
Valdosta State’s head coach likes the opportunity the tournament gives his program to show off its facilities to prospective college football players.
“It gives them an opportunity to come on campus. They’ll come here, and they’ll see what we have, with the weight room and the meeting rooms (and everything else). So it’s a little bit of a recruiting-type thing for us,” Dean said.
