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Valley’s football team has gotten the opportunity to face teams in different jerseys this week as they competed in two OTAs. 

On Wednesday, Valley hosted Loachapoka for a joint OTA. On Thursday, Valley traveled to Russell County for an OTA. The Rams got the opportunity to face Russell County and Eufaula.

Every coach in the area this summer has talked about how important it is to see their teams against a different opponent. In high school, you never really know where you stand until you face someone in a different uniform. 

This summer, Valley has been focused on improvement in all facets of their game, and they have begun to see those improvements on the field. 

“We just wanted to see how we lined up, make sure we went through our reads correctly offensively and defensively,” Head Coach Adam Hunter said. “Wanted to make sure, when we went 11 on 11 our run fits were good [and] we were in position to make plays. We were getting the defense lined up correctly in different formations, and just wanted to see how we competed against somebody other than ourselves because we’ve been going against ourselves all summer.

Valley Scheduled the two OTAs this late in the summer so that they could use it as a measuring stick for the team heading into the season. 

“So, we wanted to get some work in right at the end of summer just to kind of gauge where we were at, and see where we really needed to work on going into fall camp,” Hunter said. 

Valley will have a very veteran group on both sides of the ball this season. Most of the starters on offense and defense will be juniors or seniors. With that veteran group, Valley has seen improvement this summer. 

“You know, offensively I think we’ve matured definitely at the receiving level,” Hunter said. “The receivers really stepped up. We have two guys that’s starting this year that didn’t play last year. So, we wanted to see where they were at, and what they can do. Both of those are going to be big for us.” 

Brandon Thomas and Jayden Thomas will be the two new additions to Valley’s receiving group. The two played basketball last season, but they didn’t play football. 

The offense has seen improvement this summer. The defense will be young at a couple of positions, and Hunter wanted to see how they would perform against another team. 

“Defensively, we got some young guys at linebacker,” Hunter said. “So, we wanted to make sure they knew how to line up the defense, make sure they knew their blitzes and also they grew up as well.” 

The defensive line has also seen some big improvements this summer. Overall, Hunter believes that this summer and the OTAs were successful for Valley. 

“You know, this summer was great,” Hunter said. “Our kids bought into what we’re trying to do, we just got to carry it over into fall camp.”