TIFTON — Those of you ready for high school football can get a small taste this afternoon when the Tift County Blue Devils host their annual passing league tournament at the high school field house.

After having 16 teams in 2007, this year’s event will feature just five other schools. Tift County will field three teams to round out the eight-team field.

“We are kind of disappointed that we will not have as many teams as we had last year,” said Tift coach Jay Walls. “But we are still going to have it.”

Joining the three Blue Devil teams will be a pair of area schools, Turner County and Berrien High; McIntosh County Academy, Toombs County and in a new twist, a GISA school, the Brookwood School from Thomasville.

“One good thing about only having five other schools is that we will be able to give a lot of our kids playing time,” said Walls. “We will have one team with our starters, one team with our 2’s (second-string) and one team with our 3’s (third-string). We will be able to play a lot of guys.”

The event will begin at 12:30 p.m. with registration. Rules will be explained at 1, with the actual games beginning at 1:30.

For those fans who have never seen a passing game, it is basically a touch football game involving one school’s quarterback, receivers and running backs, against another school’s defensive backs and linebackers. A time limit is usually placed on the game, and the team with the most points wins.

The eight teams will play in two separate four-team brackets. When everyone has played everyone else in their bracket, the teams will be seeded for the championship tournament. That will involve the first seed from one bracket facing the fourth seed from the other bracket, and so on.

That will continue until a champion is crowned.

Walls said his players appear to be ready for the school’s annual summer event.

“We have had a good summer. The kids have worked very hard,” the Tift coach stated. “We have had a real good turnout for our workouts, and we’re real pleased with our effort.”

He went on to add, “We have a lot of good players coming back, but everyone else does too. It is going to be a fun year.”