•When: Friday, 8 p.m.
•Where: Ray Lamb Stadium, Commerce
•Last year: Jefferson 41, Commerce 14
•Records: Commerce (0-0), Jefferson (0-0)
•Commerce’s coach: Marvin Justice (4-7 at Commerce, second year)
•Jefferson’s coach: T. McFerrin (25-8 at Jefferson, fourth season; 326-101-4 overall, 38th season)
•Series: Commerce leads this series 41-20-5
•What else: Jefferson’s standout tailback Tristen Jackson was cleared to practice last week but how much he’ll play against Commerce is uncertain ... Commerce owns this rivalry by a two-to-one margin, but Jefferson has won the last five. Another Dragon victory would give Jefferson its longest winning streak in this series that dates back to 1947 ...Jefferson coach T. McFerrin is 3-0 so far in this rivalry ... Commerce has had winning streaks of 11 and 12 games in this series ... Commerce’s 551 wins rank 20th all time in the state (Jefferson has 387 wins all-time) ... The Tigers 4-7 campaign last year was their third losing season in the last four years ... Commerce coach Marvin Justice is only the third head coach at the school since 1967.
•What the coach is saying:
--T. McFerrin on Commerce’s team: “They’ve got a lot of starters back,” he said. “They’re experienced ...The offensive line is really good, but the defense is good. They’re stout. They look really impressive.”
--on defending Commerce’s option
“You’ve got to be disciplined. You’ve got to be very disciplined on defense, and you’ve got to play your assignments. You can’t just go running up in there. You’ve got to know which gap you’ve got and what responsibility you’ve got.”
--on having four new starters on the offensive line
“Well, it’s going to be tough because they’re really a good defensive team. We just hope these guys will respond. They’ve worked hard in practice and we got one half of a (scrimmage) game under our belt anyway, so they’ve been out under the lights a little bit, so hopefully they’ll respond well. We need for them to play really well, obviously.”
