Piedmont Athletic Conference football once again looks more like the PAC-Two than the PAC-Six, leading one to wonder: can anyone bust up the party between Southern Durham and Durham Hillside?
Those Durham rivals have claimed the conference's top two spots each year since the league was configured in 2007. Last year, no other PAC-Six team finished above .500. But things are expected to change in the 4-A conference where all but one member has won at least one playoff game this decade and two - Durham Riverside and Northern Durham - have won or played for a state championship within recent memory.
"The PAC-Six is going to be pretty competitive, I think," Southern Durham coach Adrian Jones said. "But for the last three years, it had always seemed to come down to Southern Durham and Hillside."
Jones and Hillside head coach Antonio King both embrace their schools' standings as the conference's dominant programs and the natural rivalry born of their proximity in location and talent.
"Hillside and Southern Durham make for a huge rivalry for our kids," King said. "They hang around with each other. They know each other. They're friends 364 days a year."
Southern Durham (12-2 overall and the PAC-Six champion last year) remains one of the fastest teams in the state, even without Desmond Lawrence. He won a national indoor track championship in the 60-meter dash before leaving for East Carolina. But Sherman Ragland, who placed fourth behind Lawrence in that same 60-meter championship race, is back as one of six returning starters on offense for Southern Durham. The Spartans have seven starters back on defense.
"We're just as fast as we were last year," Jones said.
Ragland had 55 tackles and nine sacks last year as a defensive end. This year, he will start at both wide receiver and free safety, Jones said, predicting "amazing things" from the preseason All-State pick.
The Spartans lost a significant amount of yardage with the graduation of quarterback Alan Lea (1,822 passing) and N.C. State recruit Tony Creecy (824 receiving). But Jones insists Southern "won't miss a beat" at quarterback with junior Dorian Belcher.
"The best thing about this team is consistency," Jones said. "The entire coaching staff is back, and we have a lot of kids back who learned a lot last year.
"Three years ago, I was pulling my hair out. This year, I'm living a stress-free life."
Hillside also has back more than half of its starters from last year's 9-4 team - seven on offense and nine on defense, including quarterback Vad Lee. An outstanding receiver as a sophomore, Lee was asked by his coaches to try quarterback and produced 2,013 yards passing and 600 rushing.
Rising senior Brandon China was the big rusher, with 1,700 yards, but Hillside has other options. Jamal Williams rushed for 600 yards last year, and sophomore Chris Francis totaled 350 yards.
This year, Lee also has at his disposal Jarrell Jones, Shaun Malloy, Myer Krah and Devondray Watson, four receivers who all have run 4.5 seconds or faster in the 40.
Hillside outscored opponents 309-160 last year, but three of the Hornets' four losses in 2009 came by a touchdown or less, including a 24-19 loss at Middle Creek in last year's second round of the state playoffs. They hope experience will make a difference in close games this year.
"The best thing about our team is the number of guys returning with a lot of experience," King said. "A lot of our guys had to play as sophomores. That means more depth for us now."
Durham Jordan, Roxboro Person and Durham Riverside all should contend for one of the PAC-Six's four playoff spots this fall.
Jordan (6-6 last year) has preseason All-State pick T.J. Thorpe, a 6-0, 180-pound receiver and return man. Already committed to North Carolina, he had 930 yards and 10 touchdowns last year.
Roxboro's Rockets (6-6) have back 6-5, 317-pound East Carolina recruit Tre Robertson to block up front for a solid ground game. Person also has a new coach in veteran Lou Geary, who led 2-A Cedar Ridge to its first playoff berth. Riverside (4-7) was one of four PAC-Six teams outscored by opponents last year, but it hopes to get a more consistent offense going with 6-4, 270-pound Brent Samuels blocking up front.
East Chapel Hill (1-10) also has a new coach - Bill Renner, father of UNC quarterback Bryn Renner and a proven winner in northern Virginia high school football - and quarterback Drew Davis, who has a year of experience under his belt.
At Northern Durham (0-11), former Millbrook defensive coordinator Anthony Sullivan vows improvement in his second season at the Knights' head coach. He's already made good on that promise this summer by taking his team to UNC's Beast of the Hill Passing Tournament, where the Knights went undefeated in their bracket and won their flight's championship.
