The fans showed up despite the blazing heat on Friday night at Andalusia High School for the 2017 edition of “Meet the Bulldogs”.

Andalusia High School head football coach Trent Taylor welcomed everyone to the event before the AHS marching band played the “Star Spangled Banner”, to surprise of band director Benny Shellhouse.

Taylor introduced the band and said that they would be performing the national anthem, but that wasn’t the plan that Shellhouse had in place.

Without much hesitation, and even though they weren’t prepared to do so, Andalusia’s “A Sound Tradition” put on a strong performance of the national anthem.

Brett Holmes then came up and introduced the Andalusia Youth Football League teams and the cheerleaders.

“They AYFL and Andalusia High School have always had a great relationship,” Holmes said. “The coaches always go out of their way to help us out, and we want to thank them for that. These young men that we have are hard working on the field and in the classroom. They work hard so that they can be like the big Bulldogs one day.”

Next up, Taylor introduced the junior high Bulldogs. They will start their season on Aug. 31 with a home game against Atmore.

Taylor then introduced the varsity Bulldogs as they walked on to the field to warm up.

Following the introductions, the varsity Bulldogs put on a scrimmage for more than an hour so the fans could catch a glimpse of things to come this season.

After the scrimmage, there was supposed to be an alumni football game, but there weren’t enough players after Jody “Night Hawk” Jackson scared them off when he showed up to defend his MVP title from last year’s game.