Plans altered for championship game

By Staff
Jonathan Willis
The Russellville varsity football team will make its fifth appearance in the state championship game this decade Thursday night when they take on the Demopolis Tigers at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa.
This marks the first year the Super Six state championships have been held away from Birmingham’s Legion Field. The Alabama High School Athletic Association voted earlier this year to move the games to the University of Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium and Auburn University’s Jordan-Hare Stadium on a rotating basis.
The 5A state title game will kick-off Thursday at 7 p.m. It will be televised on Charter channel 8 locally in Russellville.
School officials, however, hope there aren’t many folks left in town to watch it on television.
City schools will dismiss at 1 p.m. Thursday and will not begin until 9 a.m. on Friday.
School officials are encouraging fans to arrive at Bryant-Denny Stadium early Friday and line the Walk of Champions area outside the north end zone as the team unloads the buses at 5:15 p.m.
Hackleburg will be playing Brantley in the 1A title game at 3 p.m.
The Golden Tigers are looking to win the school’s first football state championship since 1968. The program has finished as the state runner-up six times: in 1987, 1992, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2008.
Along with school schedule changes, the game has also led the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce to move the annual Christmas parade, which was set for Thursday, to Dec. 10 beginning at 6:30 p.m.