Thursday was a busy day for James Clemens head coach Wade Waldrop. Instead of getting his team ready to play a game that night, he was scrambling to find a location to play on Friday, thanks to forecasted severe weather from the remnants of Tropical Storm Harvey.

The Jets were scheduled to host Gardendale Thursday night at Madison City Schools Stadium, but all after-school activities were canceled because of the threat of severe weather.

James Clemens shares Madison City Schools Stadium with Bob Jones, which hosts Austin tonight, so the Jets were shut out of their regular stadium.

After many phone calls, Waldrop was able to schedule the game at Milton Frank Stadium in Huntsville. However, the game has to be played at 11 a.m. due to two other games being scheduled at the same stadium today.

Grissom will play Lee-Huntsville at 3 p.m. while Huntsville High will host Decatur at 7 p.m. Milton Frank Stadium has artificial turf, which allows the multiple games to be played in one day.

“We worked all (Thursday) afternoon to find another location,” Waldrop said. “There were no officials available for any 6 or 7 p.m. kickoff Birmingham or north. We had wanted to play at 2 or 3 p.m. at the worst, but when Milton Frank popped open, we chose to schedule it at 11 so we could get the game in.”

Waldrop said his players will have to adjust to playing at the unusual time.

“It’s going to be a lot different,” he said. “I told our players it will be like a college game. Going out to play in the daytime is a hard thing to adjust to for high school players, when they’re used to the atmosphere of playing under the lights. Going out there at 10 a.m. for pregame is unusual. Hopefully (Thursday night) we’ll do a good job mentally of getting ready to play.”

James Clemens defeated Decatur 27-7 in a jamboree last Friday, while Gardendale suffered a 39-28 loss to Muscle Shoals in a regular season game.

Waldrop said he saw a lot of good things in the jamboree win, but also saw some things the Jets need to improve on as they begin the regular season.

“We did a good job of taking care of the football in a live environment and we had a number of guys make plays,” Waldrop said. “But we also failed to score in the red zone on four different occasions. That was very frustrating, not being able to finish drives. But all in all, it was a decent start to the season. The guys played very hard, and that was a lot of fun to see.”

One thing James Clemens has settled is its quarterback situation. Three players were battling for the starting job after last season’s starter Jamil Muhammad was lost for the season with a knee injury. But junior Jackson Reece has seized control of the starting job with his calm and steady performances in practice and the jamboree.

Reece threw two touchdown passes in the jamboree, a 30-yarder to Skelton Reese and a screen pass to Devon Atkinson that turned into a 70-yard score.

“The biggest thing is he was calm,” Waldrop said of Reece. “He had some pressure, but he did a great job of getting the ball out to the guys he needed to. He did a good job of checking down to his backs, and one of them resulted in a long touchdown to Devon. The biggest thing was we won the game and he didn’t turn the ball over, which is the expectation of our quarterbacks.”

Gardendale defeated James Clemens 26-13 last season, and Waldrop knows his team will be facing a stern test against a team hungry for its first win.

“We saw them this summer in 7-on-7, and their quarterback is a good player,” Waldrop said. “The kids play hard and they are a very well-coached team. They’re a little inexperienced at some positions, but every team improves the most from the first game to the second. We know they’ll make a lot of improvements. We’ve got to make sure our mindset is right and we’re ready to play.”