Thomasville quarterback Kenneth Hayes prepares to pass during practice Wednesday at Thomasville High School. 

THOMASVILLE — The Bulldogs have had two weeks to prepare for an old rival and top team. Following two opening losses, the benefit was an open week before traveling to take on Valdosta today at 8 p.m.

“I think we can play better,” coach Leroy Ryals said before practice Wednesday. “We’re playing good competition, and hopefully we’ll learn and get better and better every week, that’s the whole goal. I think that’s the biggest thing we got going for us. We had a week off to kind of correct our mistakes and try and get a little better.”

The Bulldogs also had a week off to heal up. Ryals said the offensive line had some injuries that forced him to move some players around for the game against Cairo two weeks ago. One of those was center Ryan Bush, who is back after a slight ankle sprain.

“We had a couple kids hurt, banged up (and) we’re getting them back now,” Ryals said. “You know, when you’re a small, AA school like us, when you get some starters down and start moving around, that makes a difference. We don’t have quite the depth that some other people have. We have the depth now, we’re getting some people healthy, we got to continue to play better.”

Valdosta (2-0), which is a much larger school, does have the depth, specifically on defense, to keep competing week after week.

“They’re tough,” Ryals said. “They have a lot of experience on that side of the ball. And they’re deep, very deep with how many kids they play, so that’ll be interesting.”

Thomasville is 17-57-5 all-time against the Wildcats. It started with a 66-0 loss back in 1914 and ended with a 10-6 loss in 1985, the last time the two have met until tonight.

“A lot of big games had a lot of impact on if you advanced on and all,” said Darrell Allen, who attended Thomasville High School in the 1970s and is now a radio announcer for the team. “It was heated in the early ’70s when Thomasville was dominating and Valdosta was trying to fight back in.”

The two met at Valdosta’s Cleveland Field in 1974, when Thomasville was on its way to a national championship. The 40-0 loss was the worst loss Valdosta suffered at there, Allen said.