Fifth-ranked Straughn will travel tonight to face what head football coach Trent Taylor calls a “gritty defense” in Alabama Christian Academy.

“They’re just really what we can tell on films are gritty on defense and run a lot of different fronts at you,” he said. “Watching the film against Andalusia last week, I don’t know if there were any three players in the same front.

“With that being the case, then obviously you have to work on several different ways and what fronts they might be in,” he said.

The Tigers are coming off a close 30-27 win over St. James last week.

Alabama Christian Academy has three players Taylor said he’s keeping his eye out on — Michael Graham, Myles Mays and Tony Derico.

Graham, a quarterback, likes to throw to Derico, a wide receiver. In addition, Mays will provide the necessary back field experience for the Eagles.

“From an offensive stand point, they’re a spread football team,” Taylor said. “But they put one of their receivers to quarterback (Graham). That’ll give them an added weapon.

“With No. 28 (Mays), he’s a big, strong kid,” he said. “No. 80 (Derico is a very, very good receiver and a tall kid. We’ll have our work cut out for us, especially in the secondary.”

Taylor said the main key to this week will be for his team to execute well on tackling.

“Offensively, we’ve got to make sure we do a better job of assignment blocking this week,” he said. “We missed several assisgments last week, and we’ve got to tackle better. We’re not doing some things on defense as well as we were doing at the end of last year. Hopefully, (tonight) we will.”

Kickoff tonight at Alabama Christian is at 7.