— Scouting Reports by Jeff Jenkins

Vance County Friday Night Football is on 1450 AM WIZS live beginning at 6:45 p.m. Friday nights as well as live streamed on wizs.com.  Kickoff is at 7 p.m.  Please see our full schedule following the scouting reports.

Southern Vance at South Granville

Southern Vance finishes up a 3-week road trip through Granville County tonight (Friday) in Creedmoor to meet the mighty Vikings of South Granville. The Raiders are riding pretty high after back-to-back victories over 1A conference member Granville Central (50-19) and Webb (28-7), but this week will be their toughest match up of the season. South Granville is 5-0, has shut out its first two conference opponents by over 50 points each (okay, they were Northern Vance and Louisburg), and is better on paper than the other unbeaten conference team, Roanoke Rapids.

South Granville, under veteran coach Mike Hobgood, has always relied on running for its offensive production, a strategy that has taken the Vikings to the state playoffs for six years straight. Last year’s offense was a bit more varied: with QB Tucker Brown passing for over 1200 yards and 11 TDs and leading the team in rushing with just under 800 yards, South finished 8-5, averaged scoring just under 30 points and allowed 20 per game. So far this season, the Vikes have scored an average of 35 points per game and have allowed just under 4 points (that’s right, four). Clearly headed toward one of their best seasons, they are doing it on the ground. QB Brown, now a senior, has only passed for 35 yards per game and 1 touchdown, but he has continued to contribute to the running game with 44 yards per outing and 3 TDs. The other 220 yards rushing per game has been spread around to a stable of backs, led by late-blooming Sr. RB Allajah Mitchell, a 6-1 220 lb Division I college prospect, with 115 yards per game and 11 touchdowns. Senior Antonio Lassiter has 2 rushing scores, and three other players have run for scores. Like most really successful teams these days, the Vikings have a reliable kicker in Jr. Robert Torrence, who is 22 of 26 on extra points, and 1 for 1 on field goals (a 26-yarder).

The South Granville defense, allowing 3.8 points per game (I had to say it again !), led by their linebackers, including Jr. MLB Justin Bullock, who has 10 stops per game, Sr. Sean Deuger who has 9 per game, and Mitchell, who starts at OLB and has 7 stops per game. Mitchell also leads the pass rush, with 6 sacks on the year.

SO…the 3-3 (2-1) Southern Vance Raiders will clearly have their hands full tonight, and they know that. With numerous penalties and turnovers in previous games, the Raiders have often been their own worst enemy, and there will be no room for those mistakes against the Vikings. With average scoring of 31 points per game (thanks to their 50 points against 1A Granville Central) Southern’s offense is clearly able to score 4 or 5 times per game, but their defense has also allowed an average of 26 points per game, and they have not played against an offense like South Granville this season. It is interesting though, that South Granville has also had a pretty easy schedule, at least in the conference, so they might be a bit soft coming into this game. These teams are also very familiar with each other, having played in the same conference for the previous four years and maintained a regional rivalry off and on before that. Southern Vance upset South Granville in 2013 and has not beaten them since, so a win for the Raiders this week would be a glorious upset, but stranger things have happened, and the Vikings usually slip up once every season.

Northern Vance hosting Louisburg

When 1A Louisburg comes to Viking stadium Friday night for a Northern Carolina Conference game, we will see two teams who are really easy to compare. In addition to statistics like won-loss record and average points per game for and against each team, we have the luxury of looking at two teams who have already played 4 common opponents this season.

Both Northern and Louisburg played the newly-3A Franklinton as a nonconference game early in this season: The Vikings lost to the Red Rams 12-0 in their season opener, while the Warriors met up with the Rams for the final nonconference game and got shut out 46-0.

The Vikings opened their conference schedule against South Granville, unbeaten then and now, and the Creedmoor Vikings demolished Northern 54-0. Louisburg clashed with South Granville just last week, also taking its lumps in a 52-0 shutout.

Both of tonight’s teams have also endured games with the other conference heavyweight, Roanoke Rapids: Louisburg took a 48-14 whipping, while Northern Vance lost 35-10 last week, in a game that actually showed some improvement for the Vikings.

Finally, both teams have played Warren County and the Eagles, traditional rivals of both the Vikings and the Warriors, have surprised some people this season, rolling up a 5-1 overall record to place them in 3rd place in the conference behind South Granville and Roanoke Rapids. However, Warren owes its perfect 3-0 conference mark to the fact that they have only played Northern, Louisburg and Granville Central so far. But to give them their due, they bested Northern 25-15 and Louisburg 27-14.

And so, we have Louisburg Northern Vance, facing the Vikings this Friday night with very similar results against common opponents this season. The Warriors are 1-5, and they have averaged scoring just under 13 points per game – which includes their 41-0 shutout over Kipp Pride in their season opener – and they have allowed 31 points per game. Against three conference opponents, they have scored 28 points total (14 in each game) and been shut out once. Northern Vance is 0-6, has averaged scoring only 6 per game (the Vikings wee shut out in their first two nonconference games), and has allowed 30 per game. In the same three conference matchups, the Vikings have scored 25 total points, and also been shut out once. If there were ever two evenly matched teams, it is these two. Louisburg has had success against Northern Vance in the past. The most recent series ran for 4 seasons between 2009 and 2012. The Warriors won that series 3-1, and there were a couple of great games, like the one-point 37-36 Louisburg victory in 2010 and the 38-35 win for Northern Vance in 2011. These teams are natural geographic and historical rivals, and they have continued to face off in 7 on 7 drills and jamborees in the last few off-seasons.

After joining the Tar-Roanoke 1A conference in 2013, the Warriors had two winning seasons in a row, ending up 8-4 in 2013 with a perfect 5-0 conference run and a playoff appearance. The next year they were 8-5 (4-1), but everyone graduated and the Warriors finished 1-10 in 2015. Louisburg came back last year finished 6-4 in the regular season, and second in their league to Granville Central, with a 4-1 mark. Unfortunately, they were again relying on seniors in their exclusively run-oriented offense, and lost all of their top producers to graduation. Rebuilding again, coach Dontae Lassiter and his Warriors are still counting on their running game, although Freshman QB Jaheim Brown has passed more in the first 5 games of this season than last year’s senior starter passed in the whole season. This year’s leading rusher is one of the few seniors, Amonte Moses, with 77 carries so far for an average of 66 yards per game and has 2 touchdowns on the year. Sophomore Elijah Mitchell also has two scores, and Jr. Devon Ingraham, the 255 lb fullback, has one TD but contributes 42 yards per game. Altogether Louisburg averages 163 yards per game rushing and 23 passing. They have not scored through the air yet.

The strongest part of the Vikings’ game this year is pass defense, and they have interceptions in every game. The Vikings offense has been rendered inconsistent by penalties and turnovers, as well as opposing defenses. The offensive line is small and still developing, so the talent of the several running backs (195 lb Sr. Abraham Wright, also a defensive standout, Sr. Jameel Johnson, who also plays some QB) like to pass, now that they have settled on a Soph Samien Burell as starting QB, and Burell is beginning to zero in of recovers Mikel Brown, Phadol Jordan, Taquan Lyons and others. They have also discovered a reliable kicker in Sr Brian Lopez, who has been steady on PATs and short field goals the past few weeks. Louisburg seems to have all the same problems that Northern Vance does this year, and if Northern can keep their mistakes to a minimum, they have a good chance for their first win this week.