Tuscaloosa County Ditches Pair Of Big Crosstown Rivalry Games For 2022

*This story has been updated from its original edition to include quotes from TCHS Principal Darrell Williams*

TUSCALOOSA, AL — The 2022 high school football season in west Alabama will be without two of its biggest crosstown rivalry games.

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Tuscaloosa County High School on Monday officially unveiled its 2022 football schedule, which immediately raised eyebrows when it became clear that the Wildcats would not be taking on the Hillcrest Patriots, Northridge Jaguars or The Paul W. Bryant Stampede next season.

"We were disappointed, we found out late in the scheduling process that County had decided they were going to move in a different direction from playing us," Northridge football coach Mike Vickery told Patch on Tuesday. "They have their reasons, I'm sure."

County High will, however, open the 2022 season at home with the Central Falcons — its most longstanding rival — while the season will close on the road at Brookwood.

"We tried to work it out," TCHS Principal Darrell Williams told Patch on Tuesday. "We negotiated it back and forth and it just didn’t work out. Hillcrest had theirs done before and it just didn’t work out. We talked about doing it again in two years, because we love the rivalry. It's always a great gate, but there are off the field issues we are trying to work out."

When considering extracurricular hinderances, Williams explained that while Hillcrest was more or less an inability to come to terms on a date, the Northridge game was one that TCHS wanted to put on pause.

"We had a lot of vandalism to vehicles and houses in our area," he said. "Those [Northridge] students were on our campus a lot and it was really hard to continue to play that game. It just wasn’t in our best interest at the time."

He went on to mention other acts of vandalism that occurred to vehicles at TCHS during a school dance following the Northridge game last season, in addition to a paintball gun fight in the parking lot of Publix off McFarland Boulevard that resulted in vehicle damage.

"It’s hard as a principal to be ok to keep doing this," Williams said. "Maybe in two years we can bring it back, though."

The Wildcats are the oldest rival for the Patriots, with the two teams playing a total of 26 times in the 41 years since Hillcrest football first debuted. Of those contests, County High has won 15 times, while the Patriots have won the last eight meetings.

It's worth noting that tempers flared for a variety of reasons before, during and after County High's matchups with Hillcrest and Northridge last season. The two smaller 6A schools both notched blowout wins over the 7A Wildcats — with County High losing by a combined score of 72-16.

Hillcrest High Principal Jeff Hinton told Patch in a phone interview on Tuesday that the scheduling was not the work of the Patriots football program or the Tuscaloosa County School System.

"It's something that was out of our control," he said, mentioning that he was made aware of the news Monday night. "It's definitely a disappointment for our kids and our community."

TCHS football coach Adam Winegarden, entering his second season at the helm for the Wildcats, provided his perspective, telling Patch that the scheduling had more to do with the difference in classifications and region schedules aligning.

Echoing Williams, Winegarden also said he expected the crosstown rivalry matchups to be revived in the future.

"It basically came down to scheduling conflicts," he said. "The schools are trying to redo their schedules because we're not in the same class. It just didn't work out and wasn't something that had to do with any of the schools."

Vickery said Northridge definitely wants to continue the rivalry, but lamented the fact that the Jags will now have to travel to Mobile to take on 7A Alma Bryant instead of traveling 10 minutes down the road to face a local rival.

"We had agreed to play on the same week the last two years," he explained. "I'm big on local rivalries because these are people you grew up with, people you go to church with, folks who know each other and cheer on the kids. That's what makes high school football special ... It adds excitement for the kids, who all know each other, so to lose one of those rivalry games is disappointing."

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