Players checked in Monday as Montgomery’s Cramton Bowl Multliplex as the 27th annual Alabama-Mississippi Football All-Star Game Week officially got underway in Montgomery.
The game, comprised of current high school seniors, will be played Saturday at Cramton Bowl. Kickoff is set for 12 noon. The game will be televised live in Alabama and Mississippi by Raycom over its affiliate stations in each state. WSFA NBC TV 12 is the flagship Raycom station for this event.
Alabama’s All-Stars currently hold a 19-7 edge in the series that was played from 1988-2010 at Mobile’s Ladd-Peebles Stadium. Alabama’s All-Stars have five a row dating back to the 2007 game which Mississippi won 26-7.
The game is an event of the Alabama High School Athletic Directors & Coaches Association, the coaches organization of the AHSAA. The Mississippi team is selected by the Mississippi Association of Coaches.
Central-Phenix City’s Woodrow Lowe is serving as head coach for Alabama’s team, and Lance Pogue of South Panola is the Mississippi head coach. Lowe was an assistant coach in last year’s 21-16 Alabama win. Alabama’s All-Stars are 2-0 in the classic since it moved to Cramton Bowl in 2011.
Each team has 40 players on their respective rosters. Among the players reporting Monday for Mississippi were defensive back Picasso Nelson of Class 6A state champion Oak Grove and Class 5A state champion Picayune teammates Preston Dedeaux and D’Marcus Harralson. Harralson is 6-foot-6, 312-pound offensive lineman and Dedeaux is a 5-7, 192-pound running back. Mississippi crowned its state champions at Jackson last weekend.
Alabama also has several players who were crowned as state champs last week at the Super 6 State Championships held at Bryant-Denny Stadium.
Hoover, which won the 6A crown for the second straight year and for the eighth time since 2000, has two players set to play in Saturday’s game, defensive back Marlon Humphrey and offensive lineman Nicholas Bodden. Tight end Hunter Wood is in the game from Class 5A two-time state champion Spanish Fort. Humphrey and Wood are sons of former University of Alabama players: Bobby Humphrey and Russ Wood, respectively. Ironically, Hillcrest-Tuscaloosa linebacker Keith Holcombe is also in the game. Holcombe’s dad Danny and Wood’s father Russ were teammates and roommates for the 1982 Crimson Tide.
The teams will begin two-a-day practices Tuesday 9 a.m. with Alabama at Faulkner University and Mississippi at Huntingdon College. The afternoon practice will be at 2 p.m.
Players from each team met with reporters at check-in and later were treated to a tour of the Hyundai Assembly Plant neat Pintlala. Tonight the teams will go to the Rosa Parks Civil Rights Museum downtown.