This Saturday the second annual Whitehaven Classic — three games involving the six Whitehaven area high school football teams — will take place at Whitehaven Stadium. The first two games should be good, but the game between Mitchell and Whitehaven should be a classic. Both teams are very strong and could compete for state titles — Mitchell in Class 3A and Whitehaven in 5A. Whitehaven is ranked No. 3 in our Dandy Dozen, while Mitchell starts the year at No. 7.

Saturday’s Schedule
3 p.m. — Hamilton vs. Hillcrest
5:30 p.m. — Fairley vs. Westwood
8 p.m. — Mitchell vs. Whitehaven

Football fans, don’t forget the high school season begins this Friday night for a lot of area schools, and Saturday is the annual Consulting Services Group/BRIDGES Kickoff Classic at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium.

The Classic games begin at 10 a.m. with Ridgeway and Covington meeting in the opener. Defending Division 2-A state champion St. George’s plays Booker T. Washington at 1 p.m.

White Station, with new coach Devin Rutherford, takes on Christian Brothers at 4 p.m., followed by the 7 p.m. game between Memphis University School and Melrose.

Although QB Will Hudgens has begun to look more comfortable running the spread offense tossing deep passes (and not fastballs) since returning to football (he played baseball from early spring to late July), I don’t think there’s a question about the U of M’s starting quarterback.

Coach Tommy West named junior college transfer Arkelon Hall the starter heading into the preseason camp and Hall appears to be making strides. He is beginning to get his timing down with the receivers and in Monday’s scrimmage at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium he looked as sharp as he’s looked since putting on a Tiger uniform last spring.

In his first two series Monday, Hall completed 9-of-12 passes for 106 yards and two touchdowns. He made every conceivable throw during the stretch — screens, slants, deep balls — and was perfect on a 43-yard TD pass to Maurice Jones.

Of his incompletions during the stretch, one was a dropped pass and another was a ball he was forced to throw away. His only bad throw of the 12 was the dreaded overthrow in the end zone.