By TONY McINTYRE

Undoubtedly the most important high school football game on tap this weekend in the Metro Atlanta area will be between defending AA champion Southwest DeKalb and Druid Hills, the only contest pitting teams unbeaten through five starts.

Coach Dewey Alverson perhaps said it best and succinctly following the Panthers’ 40 to 0 win over previously unbeaten Riverwood. “Our whole season is next week. Our whole season is that one game,” he said.

While some may contend a statement like that might be short changing the rest of the competition in Region 4AA East, it nevertheless appears true at this juncture.

Alverson’s team, along with coach Jim Rakestraw’s Red Devils, has certainly distinguished itself as the class of the subregion up to this point.

The winner in all likelihood will meet North Springs for the region title more than five weeks off. The loser will likely end up 9 to 1 on the year. At least that’s what the vast majority of people are saying who closely follow the region.

To say that Alverson’s team, rated No. 1 in the Journal’s AA poll, has been convincing is an understatement.

While scoring better than 34 points a game, the goose egg hungry Panthers have shutout four opponents, allowing only a single touchdown to be scored against them.

On the other hand, the Red Devils have put up 161 points on the scoreboard. They have given up 44. They have shut out Briarcliff and Cross Keys.

Both coaches agree the key to the contest will be defense, although the colorful Alverson said, “The first team that misses an extra point could lose,” meaning of course he’s expecting a high scoring affair.

“I may have been grinning when I said it,” recalled Alverson, “but I was serious. They’re good. They’re awfully good.”

“The thing that concerns me most is their speed,” he continued. “I don’t think anybody has stopped them. Their total offense each game is just fantastic. I don’t know what they’re averaging. It must be close to 400 yards every ball game.”

Told that, Rakestraw made a correction. “We’re not averaging that much,” he commented. “We’re averaging 350.”

Rakestraw did not, however, in apparent fairness to Alverson, that the Red Devils had a composite of 433 yards against North Cobb, Druid Hills’ latest victim by a 44 to 12 count.

Asked what he planned to do to contain the quick pitches that have been so successful for Druid Hills up to this time, Alverson answered: “I don’t know any way to stop it but buy our defensive ends Hondas and arm them with .30 30s.”

“Really, I don’t know any way to answer that without saying what we’re going to do. But we’ve just got to stop them.”

“That’s the key, no doubt. You have to score to win. The key to this ball game is stopping them and letting our offense have the ball.”

“If the offense doesn’t have the ball, we can’t score. What we’ve got to do is give them the ball.”

Another thing that concerns Alverson is how his team will react to a tough game for a change.

“I think these kids will react just fine, but you can never be sure,” he admitted. “They haven’t had to really buckle down and come from behind like last year two or three times.”

“We haven’t played a team anywhere close to Druid Hills’ potential or ability. Nobody has tested us, to tell the truth.”

“But I think the kids are kind of looking forward to it. They’ve known all along how good Druid Hills would be. I think they’ve got enough sense to know how good they are and the importance of this thing.”

The game, if possible, probably more important to the Red Devils. There’s more at stake than stopping the Panthers’ 15 game win streak. There’s even more at stake than avenging last year’s humiliating 56 to 20 defeat.

“This is the biggest game we’ve had in a long time,” said Rakestraw, who has suffered through lean years when people referred to his program as a football patsy.

“The last big one Druid Hills had was in 1969 when Avondale beat us 14 to 7,” he added. “This school hasn’t had a game this big since then.”

While Rakestraw is concerned with stopping an offense that five other teams have failed miserably at, he believes one way to do it is for the Red Devils to control the ball.

“We have to keep the ball,” he stated. “I know Dewey talks about what we’re averaging but Graves’ senior tailback Greg Graves is averaging half of that a game. He’s tough. We’ve got to control that ball.”

Some might be inclined to wonder whether the pressure of this Saturday’s meeting at Adams Stadium would be too much for Rakestraw’s team to handle since it hasn’t had the experience of playing in big games like SWD.

“That’s true,” admitted Rakestraw. “That’s one advantage Southwest DeKalb has had. But after going through what we’ve had to get this far, I don’t think the players will let us down.”

“Our goal the first five games was to win them one ball game at a time. We know this could mean a region championship. I don’t think a team could lose one and still win the subregion.”

“Our kids have talked about this one everyday since the season started. It’s been a long haul. We’re as ready, I guess, as we can be.”