Alexander is heading into this Friday’s game with Carrollton with high hopes that the state fifth ranked Trojans are looking ahead at their following week;s showdown with top-ranked Sandy Creek.

The winless Cougars (0-7, 0-4) will travel to Carrollton High School Friday for the Trojan’s homecoming game.

So far, Carrollton (5-2, 4-0) has had easy work of their 5-AAAA region opponents, winning by a combined score of 200-38.

Alexander will head to Grisham Stadium with a defense that has surrendered 37 points per game, including giving up 40-plus points in every region came thus far.

That’s something that CHS coach Rayvan Teague is looking to exploit on Friday night, as his team wants to continue to polish all facets of its game in gearing up for the postseason.

“Actually, they’ve not been bad on offense. Their offense has put some points on the board against everybody they’ve gone up against. They scored 28 against LaGrange. So they’ve got a good little offensive system, but defensively they have struggled. People have been putting up 40 points on them. So we always like that matchup. We have a lot of confidence in our defense. We feel like we’re going to come up with a good plan and get after them,” Teague said.

While the offense has kept some games close this season, and put up a respectable amount of points on the board, Alexander will head into this week’s game down a starting quarterback as Brian Dansereau sits out due to a concussion he received in last week’s game.

Dansereau, a junior, will be replaced by senior Evan Wood, who started several games early in the season but has since been replaced by Dansereau.

The Cougars will still have perhaps their top offensive threat this season in sophomore running back Mikell Lands.

“When you watch Lands on the field he doesn’t look like a sophomore. He is and all-purpose running back with speed,” said AHS coach Matt Combs before the season kicked off.

So far Combs has been right about Lands, and he, along with junior Tyler Tolbert, have flourished running the ball.

For Carrollton, a big selling point for this week’s game is inching closer to securing home-field advantage for the first round of the Class AAAA state playoffs. The Trojans want to win the region crown and earn the No. 1 seed, but they can’t win the region this week, however they could lose it should they look past the Cougars.

Carrollton will be without the same four starters that sat out last week, along with punter Cristain Rameriz, who was injured during last week’s 45-12 homecoming victory over Shaw.