Bartlett High School’s football team is preparing for another season that opens with a Jamboree game on Aug. 12 at Houston High School.
The Panthers will play a road game Aug. 26 in Hoover, Alabama, against one of the best high school teams in the country. Hoover High School ranked 4th in Alabama and 33rd nationally last season and is one of the premier teams in the country every year.
“We’re probably playing one of the top three teams in the South,” Bartlett head coach Lance Tucker said of Hoover High. “You’ve gotta know where you are going and that’s where we want our program to go. We want to be the best we can be. We want to be one of the best programs in the state of Tennessee.
“If we don’t know what a top program looks like, then we don’t know how we’re supposed to get there,” Tucker said.
Tucker said playing against the best teams in the country is how Bobby Bowden built Florida State when he was the Seminoles’ coach in the mid-1970s.
“Hoover has been a top 3 program in the Southeast for the last 25 years,” he said. “We need to see what a top program looks like, then we’ll know we need to make some decisions, and then we’ll make some decisions to get there.”
An addition to this year’s Bartlett team is transfer quarterback Brayland Ragland, who played at White Station last season.
Ragland is listed at 6-feet, 195 pounds and has the ability to extend plays by avoiding rushers and scrambling around in the pocket. He buys time for his receivers to get open and can throw the ball off balance and under pressure.
Ragland completed 45 of 75 passes in five games last season for 536 yards and 7 touchdowns with only 2 interceptions on a Spartans team that finished 3-7.
“Brayland did transfer over. He had some issues over there and he wanted to try something different. He came to us and wanted to talk to us,” Tucker said. “He’s a great young man who’s got a bright future.”
Ragland has committed to play at Georgia State University.
Tucker says the strength of the Panthers team this season will be the offensive line, where three starters from last season return, and the defensive secondary.
“We’ve had the best summer I’ve ever been involved in, as far as kids being here, with good attitudes, and enjoying each other and working hard,” said Tucker, whose team comes off a 5-5 season in 2021 looking to compete better against the best teams in 6A Region 8 like Whitehaven, Collierville and Germantown.
“We’ve got kids who are going to play as hard as they possibly can as soon as the ball is snapped. That’s all you can ask for.”
The Jamboree games at Houston High, 9755 Wolf River Blvd. in Germantown, begin at 6 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 12.
