SportsTalk on WIZS 12:30 p.m. M-Th

With football season in the Tar Heel State ramping up tomorrow night, high schools all across the state are looking forward to finally getting back on the field for the 2024 campaign. Vance County’s head man Aaron Elliott joins SportsTalk with Scout Hughes and George Hoyle to talk about Vance County’s matchup tomorrow night against Warren County.

Coach Elliott feels better about the season opener against the Eagles now that they have a few scrimmages under their belt. “At the Jordan Scrimmage we made a lot of mistakes mentally. Just as for like not lining up right and just being in a bad position to make plays. I told the kids after the game, if we would’ve done everything right, it wouldn’t have given us anything to work on going into the season. It really helped us expose some of our weaknesses against a good team.”

Even though Coach Elliott is in his second season at the head of the Vipers program, he has had a lot of encounters with Warren County Head Coach Victor Hunt. “We’ve been playing each other for just about my whole coaching career. Even when I was at Louisburg, we played Warren County every year. Coach Hunt has a big respect from us. He does a good job with low numbers each year. We’ve played some tight ball games back and forth. With this rivalry, at the end of the day it’s like Duke and Carolina.”

Week 1 starts a season of what could be a great year for Vance County. Especially after achieving the first 10-win season by any team from Vance County since Southern Vance won 13 games in 2007. Coach Elliott wants Vance County to go to higher heights in 2024 and beyond. “We’ve been talking about it ever since the end of the year last year, you know having a championship mindset. That’s been our main goal and main focus coming into this season, thinking about the future a little bit. Thinking about what we gotta do to be able to compete for a state championship. We’re not satisfied after the end of last season with Terry Sanford knocking us out in the first round. It put a sour taste in our mouths.”

In preparation for Warren County on Friday, Coach Elliott states that practice went well this week. “We have been really, really drilling these kids talking about the mindset aspect of the game…we’ve got to have consistent days of practices that are great. This week even though it’s a rivalry game and they love playing this game against Warren County…this week has been a great week of practice.” Coach agrees with WIZS’ George Hoyle that you have to practice like you’re going to play. No injuries have plagued the Vance County squad Elliott says, which is always a good thing.

Warren County, a member of the Tar-Roanoke Conference, is a 1A school and since Vance County Schools consolidated, the Vipers have beaten the Eagles every time they’ve played each other. Coach Elliott wants to make sure that his team doesn’t overlook their opponent this week. “That game (Vance County vs. Warren County) has came down to the last play of the game or even the last drive of the game every year…I want to put an emphasis on our mindset and that we don’t feed into the hype as much. We focus on what we’re doing and what we’ve got to do to get better for ourselves. Minimizing mistakes and everybody doing their job.”

Coach Elliott is excited to get the season started and said, “Come out and support the Vipers. After last year, everybody is excited to see how we respond and rebound off of that early playoff loss. We have a good returning class, a lot of returners back on both sides of the ball. Everybody is excited to watch us play football.”

Vance County travels to Warren County for Week 1 of the 2024 season Friday, August 23rd and you can hear all the action on WIZS 1450AM, 100.1FM, and online at wizs.com with pregame starting at 6:50 p.m. and kickoff thereafter at 7:00 p.m.

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