Target, smarget: Saraland loves being everyone else’s biggest game

 

 

SARALAND — Imagine an alternate universe in which Saraland doesn’t play in the Super 7, or the Super 8 or the Super 9 or whatever colloquialism it will be known by.

Even more inconceivably, imagine the Spartans going 0-10 and scoring only 12 points all season. Actually, it did happen last year to Murphy, the former bully of Mobile high school football that nowadays might not be favored against 11 octogenarians. Even the most virulent Murphy haters back in the day couldn’t have seen that coming, although they surely hoped for it.

If such a fantasy among the ankle biters could become a reality for the Panthers, could it happen to Saraland? Not exactly. Murphy has steadily lost students since the 1980s while there is no argument that Saraland keeps attracting them with one of the state’s best city school systems.

The Spartans have ascended to that rare place that Thompson and Hoover reached long ago and where Murphy once reigned — the successful program that draws hatred and jealousy from people who are maddened that they can’t do anything about it.

Their critics always rinse and repeat, saying those schools have facilities that give them unfair advantages, too many coaches and insisting they sneeze on the rulebook. They also grow silent when asked to substantiate those claims.

 

Embrace the resentment

 

Saraland has Class 5A’s best record (54-4) since 2022, when it started its unprecedented streak of four straight appearances in the state championship game — something no current Class 5A team has ever done. It’s won a state-best 41 straight home games, 29 straight regular-season games, 25 straight region games and 18 straight road games at campus sites.

The Spartans have produced some of the state’s greatest players in recent years — Ryan Coleman-Williams, Antonio Coleman, K.J. Lacey, Deshawn Spencer and now Jamison Roberts. They have built a dynasty, although coach Jeff Kelly refuses to call it that.

Still, Kelly and his players have come to savor the resentment.

“We know that we’re everybody’s biggest game of the year and we embrace it,” Kelly said. “We want to be the team that’s in that conversation. I think if you ask the other coaches or other players, that’s what it is. Our mindset is whoever we play doesn’t really matter. We understand that’s going to be the case every week, that we’re going to get everybody’s best shot and that’s what we want. We love being that team. If nobody’s upset with you or nobody’s trying to take you down, maybe you’re not in the right spot.”

Talk from the other side of the field is cheap for Saraland’s players. Take this from linebacker Jakari Harris:

“I like it, knowing that everybody wants to beat Saraland, playing for the team that nobody likes,” he said. “It’s an amazing thing. Everybody is gonna come out there and give us their 100 percent and it feels good when we just beat them.”

Or tight end Sye Byrd: “I love it. We’re going to get everybody’s best game and we’re going to give them our best too. Ain’t nothing wrong with that if they want it. If they’re jealous, ain’t much we can do about it.”

Or Roberts: “It puts the chip on everybody’s shoulder in here, knowing that somebody’s always after our spot and always trying to be what we are and be in the position that we’re always in. It really just makes us go harder so people don’t catch us.”

 

Run the dang ball

 

The downside is that while the Spartans have reached four straight Super 7s, they have lost the last three, two to Clay-Chalkville and one to Parker — mainly because they had a moribund and cumulative 84 yards rushing in those games. While Kelly said his confidence hasn’t been shaken, he knows they won’t win another Blue Map unless that changes.

“I don’t think it affects the confidence,” he said. “We’ve played some teams over the last two years that just physically beat us. Teams from Birmingham have represented the north for the last several years and they have always had a big, physical, strong team that is going to be elite in the box. That’s where we’ve not been as good as we need to be. We changed some things up in the weightroom in terms of our focus on getting stronger and putting on some weight. We feel like that’s what you are going to have to do to win the last game. Not to say we’re going to get there but if you do get there, you know there is going to be a team that’s a physical challenge. Whoever comes out of the south has got to win it in the trenches.”

As talented as Saraland has been under Kelly — he has had 26 first-team All-State players from 2011 to 2025 — nemesis Clay-Chalkville has had 33 in the same period. Cougars coach Stuart Floyd, a teammate of Kelly’s at Southern Miss, was supremely confident his team was better than the Spartans long before the kickoff last December.

“I told our players that we are the best team that Saraland has played this year and I don’t say that in a derogatory way,” Floyd said after the 38-21 win in the 2025 Super 7. “We practiced in shoulder pads every single day this year. I think it was 72 practices. We hit every day. We lift three days a week. We lift on game day. It’s just a mentality. Not everybody’s OK doing that but that’s our edge. I think it calluses your kids in a way that you’re built for this.”

 

Expecting to win

 

Kelly has extracted a consistency from his players that is the envy of the state and it’s led to an average winning margin of 28 points the last four seasons. The Spartans have been in only six games decided by a touchdown or less.

“I do feel like we’re at the point in our program where there is so much consistency in terms of expectation and I think there is some value in that,” Kelly said. “I think our kids understand the expectation that comes with playing at Saraland and they expect to win. I think that mindset a lot of times can make a difference in a close game. I feel like we’ve got a good chance to be a real good football team. I think that we’ve got the pieces of the puzzle to play good ball.”

If there is a puzzle piece that includes a running game to keep defenses honest, the odds are that Kelly will clutch a second Blue Map in December in front of Spartans fans in Mobile. They don’t break down each huddle in practice by chanting “State champs!” just because it sounds good.

“I feel like this team has all the right pieces to make it again,” Roberts said. “It’s the drive that we have every single day. You see it in the weight room, you see it in the way we practice. We’re just hungry. We’re tired of losing a state championship and we want to get back and prove to everybody that we can win that game.”

(Call News Editor Jimmy Wigfield has been awarded the Best Local Sports Column by the Alabama Press Association for three straight years.)