Tigers hosting Freeport Friday

by Michael DeVuyst

The 2022 Blountstown Tiger Football season will officially start this Friday at home.  Last Thursday the Tigers had a preseason game scheduled in Blountstown, but bad weather prompted a last-minute venue change.  The Tigers ended up travelling to Tallahassee to take on the Florida High Seminoles.  The Varsity Tigers played the first half taking it on the chin by a score of 42-0.  A blocked punt and 3 turnovers left Blountstown in a bad position most of the night giving the Seminoles great field position and easy scoring opportunities.  The JV played the second half and came up short 6-0.
Fast forward to this week and the Tigers will open the regular season at home against the Freeport Bulldogs.  Week 2-3 will see Blountstown on the road going to Panama City’s Tommy Oliver Stadium to battle Rutherford and then Week 3 in Marianna.  Week 4 and 5 will be home games against powerhouse Wakulla and Taylor County.  That’s four weeks in a row against competition in Class 2S. Week 6 sends the Tigers south to long time rival Port St. Joe. Week 7 will bring Northview-Bratt to Blountstown while Week 8 sends the Tiger Nation to Baker.  Week 9 the Blountstown Tigers will travel to their fifth Class 2S opponent in the Walton Braves.  The last regular season game on Week 10 will be a Sunshine State Athletic Conference game against an opponent and location to be determined.  Week 11 will be open to rest up for the start of the playoffs. 

The FHSAA has made changes once again to football classifications and playoff chances this year.  Each FHSAA member team has been divided into 4 classes based on student population and then again by town/city population.  Classes 1-4 will be given a letter designation as follows:  
M=Metro, S=Suburban, R=Rural.  

Blountstown will play in the Class1R category this year.  There are 4 regions in Class 1R and Blountstown has been placed in Region 2 with Aucilla Christian, Cottondale, Franklin County, Jefferson County, Liberty County, Port St. Joe, Sneads and Wewahitchka. The top 6 teams in each region will make the playoffs based on their RPI ranking.  The top 2 seeds in each region will earn a bye the first week of the playoffs. 

The 2022 season starts this week when Freeport comes to town coming off of wins in a preseason jamboree last week.  They played Vernon and first year program Destin in a half each and beat Vernon 28-7 and Destin 28-0.  Freeport likes to play a pass happy offense and spread you out in hopes to hitting a big play on offense.  Game time this Friday in Blountstown will be 7:00 CT.