Andalusia has been preparing all week for Friday night’s home region contest with Trinity.

Last week, Andalusia and Trinity played and lost to two of the top 4A teams in the state. Andalusia faced top-ranked UMS-Wright, losing 35-14. Trinity faced No. 2 Leeds and fell 62-7.

This week, both teams come into the contest with identical 1-1 records for the first AHSAA Class 4A Region 2 game of the season.

“It will be a lot different of a team than we have seen in the past two weeks,” Bulldogs’ coach Trent Taylor said. “They like to throw the ball. They will throw it on first-and-10 and they will throw it on third-and-1. When they get down close to the end zone, they will stay in the same type of formation.”

Taylor said the Bulldogs would have to aware of where Trinity lines up 2-star wide receiver Robert Adams.

“They have a really good wide receiver that is committed to Clemson,” Taylor said. “He is going to require us to put some double coverage on him.”

Taylor said that the Bulldogs will mix up what they do on defense in effort to place confusion on the Trinity offense.

“There are two things you can do to stop a good passing team,” Taylor said. “You can either drop defenders back or you can send pressure. We will try to do both to keep them guessing. When we do put pressure on, we have to make sure that our defensive backs can hang with the receivers long enough for us to get to the quarterback.”

Taylor said that Trinity also has a good backfield, and that their quarterback and running back both come from families where their fathers played college football at Auburn.

“They are talented group,” Taylor said of Trinity’s backfield.

Defensively, Taylor said Trinity would stay in a 4-3, and are bigger than they have been in the past.

“They are bigger up front on defense this year,” Taylor said. “They are also better than they were last year. We will still go out there and play our style of football, which is to try and run the football a little bit. We are going to have to do a better job this week, though.”

Doing a better job on the field comes with better practice, and Taylor said the Bulldogs have done that this week.

“This has been a good week of practice,” Taylor said. “Last week, we just weren’t mentally prepared to face UMS. We have been more focused this week, and I thought Monday and Tuesday were very good. Wednesday wasn’t bad, but we are still dealing with the heat.”

The key for tonight’s game will come down to who plays as close to mentally flawless as possible, Taylor said.

“In a game like this, that is so evenly matched, it comes down to who makes the least mistakes,” Taylor said. “Not turning the ball over, and least amount of stupid penalties. We can’t offered to lose possessions, and we can’t make mental penalties that keep drives alive for them.”

On last week’s defeat and how the team will respond, Taylor said he hopes it could serve as a learning experience.

“We weren’t mentally prepared last week,” Taylor said. “I won’t say we were fearful, but we hope to get to the point where we have worked so hard that we don’t fear anybody. We just have to go out and play our game.”

Andalusia and Trinity will kickoff tonight at 7 p.m., in Andalusia.