GAINESVILLE — Chestatee football players know well the history of their rivalry with North Hall.
So do the Trojans.
And in the two teams' 2017 season opener on Friday, the War Eagles will do their best to start a new chapter in a series North Hall has dominated 14-1, with Chestatee's lone win coming in 2005.
"All we get in the hallway every day is, 'are you going to win,' or, 'you better win.' That's the mindset we have to have; we've got to win," War Eagles senior Nick Lyles said.
The standout running back -- who rushed for 1,327 yards and 15 TDs and rolled up 1,711 all-purpose yards in 2016 -- is a big reason why Chestatee believes it can turn things around this time. Yet Lyles is only part of the reason for raised expectations -- across the board -- in the Sardis community these days.
After fighting the Trojans tooth and nail to start last season -- North Hall prevailed 35-28 -- Chestatee went on to their best season in three years, getting back to the postseason and erasing memories of a painful 1-19 stretch from 2014-15, as then-new head coach Shaun Conley and his staff re-invigorated the War Eagles. And with players like Lyles and starting quarterback Storm Yarbrough (1,719 yards passing, 12 TDs, 8 INTs; 301 yards rush, 3 TDs in 2016) returning, there is plenty of optimism bubbling for Chestatee's 2017 potential.
"There's more expectation this year than I've ever seen here," Yarbrough said. "So I think this year is...I'd rather play with this team for the rest of my life than any other team I've ever played with. It's exciting to be out here with this team."
That has certainly made an impression across Highway 60.
"Shaun's done a great job of getting them to play harder and longer," North Hall coach David Bishop said. "One thing we noticed last year -- in the past you get up on them, they tend to start falling down. Last year they didn't give up and made it a game up until the last moment. So for us we know we're going to have to play a full four quarters to have a chance to beat those guys."
The Trojans are feeling plenty of buzz themselves as they steel themselves for kickoff against the school carved out of North Hall back in 2002. Much of that is due to the fact that North Hall will blood several new starters in 2017 -- each eager to live up to the traditions North Hall has laid down since its ascent as a northeast Georgia power in the early 2000s. And one of those traditions has been finding a way to defeat the War Eagles.
"It's a big rivalry game just because they're our neighbors, just a game we all get after," said Trojans junior quarterback/linebacker David Seavey, one of the new faces in the starting line-up. "We want to show that we can compete with anyone. It doesn't matter who it is. We want to play fast and physical with anybody."
After making back-to-back state playoff appearances, Bishop is eager to see how this crop of Trojans will react following the graduation of a number of offensive stars, including record-setting running back Kyle Bacus, who rolled up over 1,700 yards of his own in 2016.
"Obviously you want to be somewhere where the expectations are high. You never want to be somewhere where they're low. And the exciting thing is right now there's not a whole lot of people with this group that hadn't...nobody's seen anything from them. So I'm excited at that," Bishop said. "I've used that with our seniors, I said, 'Let's prove everybody wrong. You guys have what it takes to win.' And right now, I'm going to tell you, I've not had this much fun coaching a group of kids in a long time. They're very coachable, work hard and you get what you ask out of them, which is kind of exciting."
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of Friday's showdown comes in the shape of two prolific offenses with two very different looks.
The Trojans -- as they have done for almost two decades -- will line up in their run-heavy wing-T, while the War Eagles base out of a shotgun spread -- even though they are more than happy to run the ball. However, Conley hopes to mix the pass more frequently this season.
"I feel like this year we can be a little bit more balanced," Conley said. "I think Storm is coming into his own as of late, and I think we're able to take care of the football, spread it around to all the receivers and then get Nick the ball also. We're looking to be balanced as much as we can."
After watching his defense allow an average of 38 points per game in 2016, Conley's team has also focused on defense this offseason -- though prepping for the wing-T provides plenty of challenges in itself.
"It's very difficult. We can't simulate that in practice," Conley said. "We have a very hard time with our younger guys trying to run those plays off the book to get a really good look at that. And that's one of the advantages of doing something different."
Meanwhile, North Hall knows it must limit Chestatee's ability to get to the edge.
"They've got a lot of speed, so we've got to get on the step quick and beat their linemen to the quarterback, because he's going to scramble and he's going to run and hand the ball off," North Hall senior defensive lineman Mitchell Seymour said. "Keeping them inside the box is going to be big for us."
While the game no longer means anything in the playoff race -- it is a non-region contest these days -- it still means plenty for both programs. If for no other reason than it is the first game of the 2017 campaign.
"I tell our kids every day: This is the most important game you'll ever play because it's the next one," Conley said. "That sounds a lot like coaches speak, but we try to run our program like that. This game is important because it's our next one. North Hall...our kids and their kids hang out together and stuff like that, so there's probably a little bit more at stake. But we're going to play it just like we would any other. It would be great to get off to a good start, but we're not hinging everything on this game. We're focusing on ourselves and trying to get better. Win, lose or draw we've got to play the next week. We're just excited to get going really."
Excitement is certainly in the air.
"It means a lot, to beat the cross-town rival," Seymour said. "They talk a lot of crap -- we do to each other all the time. It's going to be big. It's going to be rough, physical. Everyone should come out and see it."
