When King's Ridge kicks off their football season on Friday, it will be a moment almost a decade in the making. The school opened 10 years ago with a vision to that included a football stadium and a football team that would someday compete in the GHSA. Last season, the football stadium part of the dream came true, this year the GHSA part will follow suit when the Tigers open up against St. Francis.

"It's going to be exciting," King's Ridge third-year coach Jeff Pickren says of his team's first game as a member of the GHSA. "We've got a big tailgate being planned by our touchdown club. Our entire school is just really excited. We've been waiting to join the GHSA for awhile now."

The Tigers will join the North sub-region in class 5-A where they'll face off against North Fulton foes Mt. Pisgah and Fellowship Christian. Pickren, who was the head coach at Mt. Pisgah until 2006, would love to see his team beat the local rivals, "It would be great for our program to beat [Fellowship or Mt. Pisgah]," the veteran coach says. "It would be great for our kids. Most of these guys live in [North Fulton] and know each other, so it would be big for them and of course for our school."

Fellowship and Mt. Pisgah are good barometers for King's Ridge because both schools made the GISA (Georgia Independent School Association) to GHSA jump that the Tigers are about to make. In 2005, Fellowship finished with a 5-6 record in their final GISA season, they followed that up 4-7 record in their first GHSA season.

Pickren's old team, Mt. Pisgah, dominated their final season of GISA football, going 7-4, but they struggled in their first GHSA season, finishing 2-8.

As for King's Ridge, Pickren doesn't expect a state championship this year, but he does expect to compete, "We want to be competitive," he says. "In our region, all you have to do is finish in the top-3 of the sub-region and then in the final week, you're playing in a region playoff to try and qualify for the state playoffs. We feel like it's an accurate goal for our kids to be one of those top 3 teams."

Pickren's coaching staff will be minus Tim McFarlin and Ray Manus who both decided to leave after one year at King's Ridge. "Having those two on our sideline for a year was invaluable," says Pickren. "They're both great teachers of the game."

Offense

As with most teams, the success of the offense will depend on the play of the quarterback. According to Pickren, this is a good thing for King's Ridge, "We're going to throw the ball well," Pickren says. "Jason McCoy does a great job getting the ball where it needs to be. Plus, we have some real good receivers in John Jarrard and Devon Schmitt." Pickren also likes that Jarrard, Schmitt and McCoy are all juniors that understand his system. The coach says that sophomore Julian Champ will also see some playing time at receiver. McCoy will also have a big target in tight end Allen Hetzel.

Pickren understands that if his passing game is going to succeed, he's going to need a successful running game, "We'd like to see that improve this year," Pickren says of the Tiger ground attack. "We had some bright spots last year, but we also had some not so bright spots, so we want to see that improve."
The King's Ridge running game will be led by senior transfer Will Aiken, Aiken is one of only two seniors on the Tiger roster. He'll be joined in the backfield by fullback Roman Melnikoff. Pickren has designed his offense around the playaction, so the success of Aiken and Melnikoff is pivotal to the overall success of the offense, "We do a lot of playaction, so we're going to have to be able to run the ball enough so that we can setup our playaction," Pickren says.

The Tigers offensive line will have a baptism by fire this year as two sophomores and a freshman will be starting. Last year Cliff Farrow was anchoring a strong middle school line, this year, he'll be making his varsity debut at center. The sophomores on the line will be tackle Ralph Corser and guard Will Reagan. The upperclassman leadership will come from senior tackle J.R. Morton and junior guard Kyle Gorman. Junior Miles Marshall will also see some playing time at tackle.

Defense

With only 23 guys on the varsity roster, almost every player will be expected to go both ways. Jeff Sneed (linebacker), Connor Henderson (safety) and Josh Carter (defensive end) will be three guys who will spend most of their time on defense. However, Aiken (defensive line), Melnikoff (linebacker), Champ (cornerback), Jarrard (cornerback), Schmitt (safety), Marshall (defensive end), Hetzel (linebacker) and Morton (defensive tackle) will all be expected to spend almost the entire game on the field.

"Last year, we would start out of the gates really good, but you could see it," says Pickren. "But with guys going both ways, we would just hit the wall [late in games]. We've tried to challenge the kids this year, telling them 'you're going to get tired [if you're going both ways] and your level of play is going to drop but we need it to drop to a six or a seven, not a two or a three."

Special Teams

If you head out to a King's Ridge game this year, you might notice that Melnikoff and Schmitt never leave the field. On top of playing both offense and defense, the two juniors will be the Tiger's specialists. Melnikoff will handle placekicking duties while Schmitt will handle punting.