It seems like it was yesterday that we were kicking off another high school football regular season, flash forward a couple of months that seemed like seconds, and we are down to the final two games before the postseason begins.

Marking the true beginning of the final stretch when teams begin to separate themselves and fight for the right to continue playing the sport of football.

Seymour (3-4) hits the road for their final Hoosier Hills Conference game of the season, facing New Albany (3-4) on Friday night in Week 8.

Owls head coach Tyson Moore spoke about the Bull Dogs and their upcoming matchup.

“Every season we turn on the tape and see a lot of athletes all over the field,” Moore said. “They’ve got a couple of two-way players who play a lot of football for them. They also have some guys who have played plenty of football in their program now, so they understand the expectation.”

The play up front will dictate a lot of things according to the coach.

“I think for us it’s about going out there and controlling the line of scrimmage,” Moore said. “They lost some of their offensive and defensive linemen so they’re not as strong up front. As far as the game is concerned, you’ve got two similar teams in the aspect that we are both trying to fight to get to that .500 record,” Moore said. “We’re hoping to get above that by the end of the season. New Albany is a good and athletic football team that does a lot of things well.”

The Bulldogs are coached by Steve Cooley, who is in his eighth year at New Albany. Cooley has 30 years of coaching under his belt, including eight years at Jeffersonville (2002 to 2009) and six at Clarksville (2009 to 2015).

RJ Long is the sophomore leading rusher for the Bulldogs. Long has 413 yards on 83 carries and 3 touchdowns. Last season, Seymour defeated New Albany 53-14 at Bulleit Stadium.

The Owls are coming off a dominating performance against Jennings County, limiting the Panthers to just four yards of total offense and producing over 400 on the offensive side of the football.

After staying the course throughout this season, Moore was asked what he thinks the team has improved on most throughout the year.

“Our football maturity,” Moore said. “We’ve got a young group on the offensive side, and even on the defensive side returning as many starters as we did. It just feels like as the season has gone on that we’ve become more experienced and learned from our previous errors.”

Other areas have also improved this year for the Owls.

“I also think our execution has continued to get better throughout this season,” Moore said. “We understand the things we do well, and we try to take advantage of those.”

The coach spoke about the 2024 class of seniors, who have just a couple of regular season games to play for Coach Moore. He had praise for this group.

“This class has done a lot of really good things over the past couple of years,” Moore said. “They’ve been a part of a conference championship winning season and a record-breaking season. They have seen highs and they have seen lows.”

The fingerprints of this class are all over the roster and program. Including 14 seniors expecting to graduate this upcoming spring.

“You got two guys like Jaylan Johnson and Mikey Wright who would’ve started every game if it weren’t for injuries,” Moore said. “They’re surrounded by other juniors and seniors who have been two-to-three-year starters now for us.”

Seymour will host Bloomington South next week, while the Bulldogs will travel to Floyd Central to wrap up the regular season.