The only thing standing in the way of the Pleasant Home Eagles and their first home playoff berth since 2002 is the Geneva County Bulldogs.

Pleasant Home head football coach Ronnie Douglas said a win this week would be “real important” for the program.

“If we can win, we’ll get to host a playoff game, which will be big for us,” Douglas said. “Since we missed J.F. Shields (last week) for a home game, it (the playoff game) will give us five home games, which is good.”

The Eagles (5-2, 4-1 in Class 1A, Region 2) will face Geneva County in a region contest that will determine who will capture the No. 2 seed and as Douglas said a home game in the first round of the Class 1A state playoffs.

If the Eagles get a win this week, then they’d be matched up with the No. 3 seed out of Region 3. Right now, there is a four-way tie among Notasulgo, Loachapoka, Talladega County Central and Wadley, where each has a 3-3 region record.

GCHS (4-4, 3-2) is coming off a 48-7 loss to Brantley, whom PHS lost to 49-7 on Sept. 30.

“Knowing we have to win it, but looking at them on film and what we have — they’re a very young team,” Douglas said. “They have two to three seniors on the team. They have some young guys, and they play hard. Even though they’re young, they don’t make a whole lot of mistakes.”

Unlike Geneva County, the Eagles are coming off an open week. For more than a week, PHS has been going over a lot of stuff the Bulldogs have been doing on offense, in addition to the normal practice stuff.

“It’s mainly just trying to go over what they did last year,” he said. “They did some different stuff on offense.

“We worked on tackling and blocking every day,” he said. “We do our running and conditioning. This is basically week nine going into this game. You’re practice schedule is basically set, and Friday’s coming and we’ve got to get ready.”

During region play, a lot of coaches say that their teams are taking it one game at a time.

It’s that and a lot more for Douglas and the Eagles, when asked about who the team might face in the future.

“Whoever it is is whoever it is,” Douglas said. “We’re going to get film on the 29th, have our meeting and go through the same routine every week.

“This game is for this week, and Cottage Hill Christian will be for the last home game, which will be our senior night. It’ll be a big night for us,” he said. “Here at Pleasant Home we haven’t played football very long, and every win is very important.”

Kick off at Dixie Howell Stadium in Hartford is at 7 p.m.