Pleasant Grove and Ramsay have met on the football field just 11 times – always in a meaningful battle to the players and communities and lately a marquee game statewide. They have played three times in the playoffs with the winner each time advancing to the state championship game, including last season’s 27-20 semifinal win by eventual Class 5A champion Ramsay.

This Friday, it’s the No. 1 Spartans traveling to Legion Field to meet No. 2 Ramsay for a 7 p.m. showdown.

“I know they have a winning tradition there,” Ramsay head coach Ronnie Jackson said. “When you play teams that have been very good in the last six or seven years, you have to come with your ‘A’ game. I know they are well-coached and they are going to bring a fight. In the years we thought they might be down, they came with a fight.”

Darrell LeBeaux, who led Pleasant Grove to the state title game three consecutive seasons in his first four years at the school, said he’s expecting more of the same.

“Those jokers still look like a state championship caliber football team,” he said. “Their defense is still as good as last year and offensively, they can still score from anywhere on the field. We’re going to try to go in and not get embarrassed.”

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Top-ranked Pleasant Grove is 2-0 on the season with a 54-14 win at Class 7A Smiths Station and a 35-21 Region 5 win at Wenonah last week. Ramsay, which was ranked No. 1 in the preseason and Week 1 Alabama Sports Writers Association poll before falling to No. 2, beat Hueytown (28-14) and Jasper (65-6). The Rams lost 20-17 to Parker in Week 2.

“We got in the red zone and not into the end zone too many times,” said Jackson, who is 21-8 in his third season at the helm at Ramsay, of the loss. “We fought back, but we didn’t really have a good game offensively.”

All-State running back Ashton Ashford missed the game with an injury, as well. In his place, Jayden Martin has led the Rams with 243 yards rushing with one touchdown. “Jayden is our newcomer this year,” Jackson said of the 5-foot-8, 140-pound sophomore. “We’re a senior-laden team. The majority of this class started as sophomores. That makes our job easy. They make sure to show the young kids how we do things. It’s ‘each one, teach one.’

“Our quarterback, (junior) Kam Keenan, had a really good game last week and the week before,” the coach said. “He’s efficient, he’s a really smart kid. He’s got the second-best GPA on the team and he’s been starting since his freshman year. He’s a pocket passer and he makes a lot of good decisions. He doesn’t put us in bad positions. Kam understands the game and he loves to watch film and find the things he can do better.”

The 6-4, 215-pound Keenan has thrown for 463 yards this season and six touchdowns, with 6-3, 175-pound senior wide receiver Kristian Stinson his favorite target.

The Ramsay defense has allowed 13.3 points a game and is led by All-State linebacker QB Reese. The 3-star 6-0, 205-pound senior has 50 tackles – 16.7 per game – with three sacks and an interception he returned for a touchdown.

“QB has been stepping up for us every year,” Jackson said. “I think everybody on our whole defense has offers to play in college, but QB has the most.”

Reese, according to 247sports, has 11 offers, including the University of Alabama, South Alabama, Troy and Central Florida.

Junior linebacker Marquel Patterson, who Jackson said carries the team’s top GPA, has 48 tackles and a sack.

LeBeaux will counter the veteran Rams with a lot of inexperienced players, he said. “This is definitely a unique team in that we’re not as deep this year,” he said. “The crazy thing is we have about 85 kids on the team, but we’ve got a lot of young guys. A lot of the guys we have playing didn’t have a lot of varsity minutes.

“We’re still learning. The defense is working hard and playing hard. They are doing a good job just concentrating on Pleasant Grove football and not worrying about who we’re playing. We have to make sure we prepare as well as can be and let the outcome be the outcome.”

Behind quarterback Eric Handley, a second-team All-State pick last season who has committed to Wofford, the Spartans are averaging 44.5 points a game. “Eric is a coach’s son and he’s seen a lot of football. He started in the eighth grade at Fairfield, so this will be his fifth year playing varsity football.”

Handley has thrown for about 700 yards in the Spartans’ first two games, LeBeaux said. Handley’s dad, Keon Handley, is in his first year as head coach at Fultondale after five years at Fairfield and one at Selma.

Handley’s top target is 5-10, 135-pound sophomore Clarence Taylor, who already has seven TD receptions.

“Offensively, Eric and Jordan Foy are two guys we lean on,” LeBeaux said. “Jordan has been in the program since the seventh or eighth grade and he’s played a lot over the past three years. He had a chance to play with a lot of offensive linemen in front of him, like Anez Cooper and Malachi Carney, who are both playing Division I football. Anez was the (Outland Trophy) National Player of the Week last week.”

LeBeaux, 58-12 in his sixth season at Pleasant Grove, lauded a pair of two-year starters as leaders on the defense.

“Andre Watts and Cam Jackson are the two guys who lead the charge on the defensive side of the football,” he said. “Andre (a 5-10, 202-pound junior defensive lineman) has been in the program for four years and he does everything for us. Cam is an inside linebacker (a 5-6, 185-pound junior) has also been in the program for four years. He just understands how we want to do things. He plays with a certain type of grit.

“I think with what we’ve done in the past here is we have to protect that standard,” LeBeaux said. “I think they understand that. It’s built in the weight room, built at practice. When we get to the game on Friday, they understand how we want it to work. They have fallen into their roles of understanding and playing Pleasant Grove football.”