From Scrimmage Play Magazine:
http://www.scrimmageplaycva.com/uncategorized/thats-gold-jerry-gold/
Buckingham (6-1) at Amelia County (5-1), 7 p.m.
The basics: This will be the third game for the Knights in seven days… that rarely ever happens in football. Last Friday Buckingham came up with its biggest win in program history since they knocked off Dan River on the road in the 2013 playoffs. Then on Monday they rolled past Bluestone to avoid a hangover. Now they get an Amelia team that hasn’t lost since… you guessed it, against Goochland back in week two. Amelia can play, and a road win over Brunswick and another road win over a much improved Randolph Henry team show that. But there’s something brewing for Buckingham right now. This team is just clicking on both sides of the ball and specifically in the trenches.
Key matchup: Buckingham’s offensive line takes on Isaac Mosby and the Amelia defensive line. Strength on strength. The Knights offensive line is just mashing people right now. Mosby presents a similar problem that this unit saw last week with Goochland’s KK Timberlake. If Buckingham meets that challenge with similar results as last Friday, it’s going to be awfully tough for Amelia. It will also be interesting to see how this line handles the wear and tear of three physical games in a row in such a short window. The results right now say that maybe Buckingham should schedule scrimmages instead of practicing right now, because this group is just man-handling defenses right now, and doing it for a running back in Leon Ragland who is playing at a level that no other back in Central Virginia is on right now.
Who to watch: Buckingham’s defensive line. It was so impressive to see the way the Knights dealt with Goochland up front, a team that’s always found a way to run the ball, night in, night out. Senior lineman Michael Mabry is on a tear again and this Buckingham defensive line is a problem. They stop the run, they can get to the quarterback, and they play behind an athletic secondary. It’s easy to give all the credit to the offense for the six straight wins, especially given the stats, but since week one, the defense for Buckingham has been the phenomenal and it starts up front.
The line: Buckingham by 6. Physical up front on offense, physical up front on defense. That plus the ridiculousness of Ragland’s play right now? Nope, nope, nope. Buckingham is too hard to pick against right now.