Colbert Heights hopes to rebound this season

Though the Colbert Heights Wildcats had some success at 4-6 in 2022, last year’s 1-9 campaign was a step in the wrong direction.

Second-year head coach Tyler Jeffreys said he and his players have been working to get better this offseason.

“It’s a process,” he said. “In the back of your mind, it could go either way, especially your first year. Rome wasn’t built in a day. We just have to keep working hard. We need to take things one day at a time.”

Though Colbert Heights switches from Region 8 to Region 7 in Class 3A, the opponents stay mostly the same.

Phil Campbell is gone from the region, and Sheffield and Rogers have been added. The players who accompanied Jeffreys to the 2024 Football in the South Media Days on July 23 said they are looking forward to the rivalry game with Colbert County.

“Colbert County is a big rival,” Jeffreys said. “I really want to take it day by day and week by week. We can’t overlook anybody. Our goal is to get better each week.”

One of the areas Jeffreys said he and his team are working on is defense.

“Defensively we did struggle last year,” he said. “We are going to change some things up. The year prior to that we had three senior linebackers and lost them, so we had to regroup. We have several guys coming back this year. Having guys with experience is going to help us out a lot. We are going to have some guys in different roles, but they have played a lot of football.”

Colbert Heights kicks off the 2024 season at Cherokee in a renewal of the rivalry game.