This is an opinion piece.

It took a few extra months than we previously thought, but we now know where the Super 7 high school football championships will be for the next four years.

As you likely know by now, the AHSAA’s Central Board of Control approved a new four-year rotation on Wednesday that will have Birmingham hosting in 2025 and 2027 and Mobile in 2026 and 2028.

The event has been to UAB’s Protective Stadium twice before, including just this past December. It seemed flawless each time. It’s a nice stadium, a good location and the event staff handled everything well.

The big news this week was not that Birmingham will host again in two of the next three years, but that the championships will move south to Mobile and South Alabama’s beautiful Hancock Whitney Stadium twice in the next four years.

The change was necessitated by the fact that Auburn’s Jordan-Hare Stadium and Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium are no longer in the rotation due to the expanded college football playoff. Montgomery (Alabama State) and Troy also bid on hosting the games, and AHSAA executive director Heath Harmon said there was “absolutely nothing negative” about any of the sites.

“I just thought it made sense to go to a four-year rotation and, with that, I was trying to look to the two best options right now,” Harmon said. “The people in Birmingham are great. That experience is an elite experience for the student-athletes. When we looked at the other sites, we landed on Mobile being the best right now. They host the Senior Bowl, which is the premier NFL event. They host the All-Star Games. They are committed to having an elite experience for everyone and so is Birmingham.”

My house in Daphne is approximately 40 minutes from Hancock Whitney Stadium, so obviously I’m excited about the news. It’s four nights in the year I won’t have to spend away from my family if I’m still in my current role for AL.com in December of 2026.

More than that, though, I believe Hancock Whitney is a perfect setting for high school football’s biggest week. It already hosts the Reese’s Senior Bowl and the 68 Ventures Bowl as well as being the home of the South Alabama Jaguars. The $78 million state-of-the-art facility opened in 2020. It has a seating capacity of 25,450. Can you imagine the atmosphere the smaller venue will create for the state’s biggest matchups in the biggest classifications?

Huge credit does to Danny Corte, executive director of the Mobile Sports Authority, for taking the lead in pulling this together. It’s something he said this week he’s dreamed about since the planning stages of Hancock Whitney. Kudos to South Alabama and Director of Athletics Joel Erdmann for being a huge part of the bid process and for being willing to open the campus to visiting teams and fans.

“It reinforces what kind of mode we are in, not only as a football program or department, but also as a university where we are externally, raising awareness, doing everything within our power to get people to come to the community and our campus,” Erdmann told AL.com. “That positively impacts our profile and our name recognition and an understanding for who we are as a university. And parallel to that, this requires us to make sure we are doing everything in our power to make it a positive and memorable event for the teams, the fans and everybody that comes for the Super 7. Our intention is to definitely do that.”

Harmon may have put it best when he said, “If Mobile does as good a job with the games as they did trying to get them, we are in for an elite experience.”

I think Corte, Erdmann and company will create just that, and we know Birmingham will. We’ve already seen that.

The big criticism of the move for some in the state, of course, is geography. Some teams in the north may feel its simply too far to go for their teams, especially if they are trying to make it down and back in one day. I think, however, if your team is in the state championship, you will find a way to get there wherever it is.

Currently, the state soccer tournament is in Huntsville. The baseball and softball championships are in Jacksonville and Oxford. All are great venues. South Alabama will be as well.

Central Board president Terry Curtis of UMS-Wright noted this week that we’ve come along way since championship games were held at home sites. I covered two of those. (Yes, I know I’m getting old. Although, as the great poet Jon Bon Jovi once said, “not old, just OLDER.”)

The first state title game I covered was held in Plantersville in 1990. Dallas County defeated Plainview 40-7 for the Class 3A state title.

The second took place at Prichard Stadium in 1991. Gadsden High defeated Blount 20-7 for the 5A championship.

I have special memories from those events 35 years later, and I didn’t even play in the games. Our student-athletes will have special memories from their championship games as well – no matter how far they travel to get there.

Eat more chicken

I had a chance this week to hang out a little bit with former Madison Academy and Auburn star Kerryon Johnson.

I remembered that one of Johnson’s chief recruiting considerations for where he would play college football was whether the town had a Chick-fil-A or not. Auburn did.

“I went there every single day,” Johnson remembered Tuesday at the annual ASWA Player of the Year Banquet.

He said his go-to meal never changed.

“During the season, I would get a spicy chicken sandwich with a lemonade. If I was out of season, I would venture out a bit and get a spicy chicken sandwich with a cookies and cream milkshake. It’s the same thing in Florence now. I probably go there two or three times a week.”

Johnson is coaching running backs at the University of North Alabama. He came to Montgomery this week to give an encouraging message to 48 player of the year finalists who were in the same shoes he was in a decade ago. He talked about being exceptional as a player and a person.

Kerryon Johnson was — and still is — both.

Thanks, coach.

Thought for the Day

“And the church of Christ was born

Then the Spirit lit the flame

Now this gospel truth of old

Shall not kneel, shall not faint

By His blood and in His name

In His freedom I am free

For the love of Jesus Christ

Who has resurrected me”

— King of Kings, Hillsong Worship and Brooke Ligertwood.

Ben Thomas is the high school managing producer at AL.com. He has been named one of the 50 legends of the Alabama Sports Writers Association. Follow him on twitter at @BenThomasPreps or email him at [email protected].