By Joe Medley, East Alabama Sports Today

PIEDMONT — How will things go for Spring Garden football in year one without long-time head coach Jason Howard?

Hard to say, but the first three weeks under Barrett Ragsdale ended with a major boost of encouragement.

The Panthers lost 29-2 to Class 4A contender Handley in the final of Saturday’s Piedmont 7-on-7 tournament, but Class 1A Spring Garden reaching the final marked the day’s biggest surprise.

The Panthers beat Class 4A contender Jacksonville and perennial Class 3A contender Piedmont in the quarterfinals and semifinals, respectively. They rebounded from a 35-0 loss to Jacksonville in pool play.

Spring Garden’s eye-catching result in the 7-on-7 comes just more than three weeks after Howard’s June 30 announcement that he was leaving for a coaching job in Georgia.

Howard coached the Panthers 20 years over two stints, leading them to the playoffs 12 times.

Howard led Spring Garden to the Class 2A quarterfinals in 2020 plus three other quarterfinal runs in a four-year span. Those marked the longest playoff runs in program history.

Ragsdale, Spring Garden’s defensive coordinator for 12 years, was officially elevated to head coach July 10.

Twelve days later, Ragsdale and his Panthers walked off of Piedmont’s Field of Champions with a trophy.

Ragsdale called recent weeks “a whirlwind.”

“A lot of people think, well, I’ve been here for a long time, so we can keep on going normal,” he said. “We have, but going from the passenger’s seat to the driver’s seat, so to speak, it’s been fun. It’s been hectic.

“Now, I think we get closer to the season, like, today shows us that little bit of normal. We created some normal today. It makes you feel better about it.”

A 7-on-7, essentially a passing drill with no linemen involved, does not real football make. Still, Spring Garden’s skill players got far against athletes from bigger winning programs.

“The guys today just showed me that they’ve got what I knew they had, that fight in them,” Ragsdale said. “We come out here and played maybe 10 kids, rolling all day. We played a lot of teams that are platooning us on offense and defense and … it’s pretty hot out here, and they fought through and won some big games today.

“Just the fight the kids had today was the biggest thing.”

A 7-on-7 highlights quarterbacks, and Chapel Pope showed out as more than a quarterback.

“Chapel today, he played quarterback. He played slot, played split,” Ragsdale said. “Just moving him around and letting him get the ball, he had a great day. He had some huge catches.

“In the Piedmont game (Spring Garden won 18-16), he had a huge catch, a third-down conversion, a deep route that kept us in that game. That’s the one that sticks out.”

Pope played receiver when older brother Chaz quarterbacked the Panthers and moved after Chaz was injured in 2021. As for whether he’ll move around during the season, he and Ragsdale wouldn’t say.

“You’ve got to take that up with coach,” Pope said.

As for how things have felt around the program with Ragsdale in charge, Pope said he senses little change.

“We hit it running,” Pope said. “Nothing stopped. We just swapped coaches. We’re going to miss Coach Howard, but we’ve got a good one stepping in.”